


void and light

by wombuttress



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/F, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2018-12-09 22:22:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 32,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11678286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wombuttress/pseuds/wombuttress
Summary: In Yvanne Amell, Loriel sees light and laughter, the only growing, living thing in this prison. Within herself, she sees nothing--emptiness, nonbeing, as a good mage should.In Loriel Surana, Yvanne sees everything worthy and good in a world that has declared her a monster. Within herself, she sees only anger and misery, a worthlessness that her magic has cursed her with.There is no hope for such as them, for fire made flesh, save for at the meeting place of void and light.





	1. Chapter 1

Loriel Surana was eight years old when she was taken from her alienage hovel to Kinloch Hold, by foot and then cart and then boat. Yvanne Amell was nine.

Loriel sat quietly in the boat and watched the tower loom closer, silent and shying as the midnight waves pitched them back and forth. Yvanne hissed and spat and bit anyone who came close to her.

Loriel knew that you didn’t fight, if you wanted to live. Yvanne clearly didn’t.

Loriel watched the older girl protest and scream the whole way there, and couldn’t understand why. But then, Loriel’s parents had given her up. Perhaps this girl’s parents had wanted her. Perhaps that was why she fought so hard.

It didn’t matter, in the end, whether you fought them or not. Both of them were held still by big men in heavy armor, their blood taken. Loriel sat still and quiet, biting her lip as her skin broke and the blood welled out. Yvanne thrashed so hard they had to knock her out to do it. It was strange, to see that happening to a human girl. In the alienage, they had only hit little elven girls like that.

But here, she supposed, they hit anyone like that.

When flowers began to die in her presence, when the other children in the alienage began to get sick just by being near her, Loriel had realized what she was. In her childish panic, she had hidden it, but it had been no use. When the neighbor’s mangy cat keeled over dead after Loriel stroked its head, she had been discovered.

A deep affinity for entropy, that’s what it was. They would teach her to control it. So she could stop hurting people. That was a good thing, wasn’t it? If she could learn to control it, then she would be a good girl. She wanted that, didn’t she?

Yes, Loriel said, nodding obediently, as she had watched her mother do a hundred times. You smiled and nodded and agreed. That was how you survived.

But it did little to make her friends.

It just figured. Not only was she _creepy_ (with her too-large eyes and elven nose and the aura of death all around her), the other apprentices didn’t much like how obedient she was. Her compliance was shaped like betrayal to them.

They didn’t understand. They were all human. They didn’t know how it worked.

But that was fine. Loriel could keep to her studies, which had hardly begun but still excited her terribly. There were so many books in the library, more than she had ever imagined existed, and they were going to teach her how to read them. She found the biggest book in the library that she could, even though the pictures weren’t very good and she couldn’t read it. She could hide behind it, and watch the others. Maybe by watching, she could learn the right way to be liked.

\--

It was a month of Yvanne’s wild behavior before they stopped tolerating it. This time, when she mouthed off, and told the bucket-headed ginger moron exactly what she thought of him, she found herself suddenly on her knees with the Templar twisting her arm so hard she was sure it was about to break.

She tried to swear at him, and cried pitifully instead.

The pressure suddenly lightened. Yvanne could only lay on the cold stone floor and gasp. She scrambled up to see the thing that had distracted her assailant--an elven girl tugging on his skirt.

“Ser Templar,” the girl said, pitching her voice just a bit higher and squeakier than it really was. Yvanne had seen her around, but couldn’t remember her name. “Can you help me?”

The man turned away from Yvanne to scowl at the elf. She widened her already large eyes

“What is it?” he barked.

She held out the massive book she carried everywhere. She opened a page obviously at random and pointed to a particular passage. “What’s this say?”

The man, a redhead with a bull jaw and unkempt stubble gave her a withering look. “You bothered me for this? Shove off.”

“Wait, please,” the girl said, tugging on his skirt again. Her eyes settled briefly, urgently on Yvanne. While the redheaded idiot’s attention was elsewhere, Yvanne bolted.

\--

Weeks in this tower, and Loriel still hadn’t made any friends. In fact, the other apprentices seem to have bonded together in delight of tormenting her.

It was ridiculous, she thought, to be tearing up at jeers and taunts, when she was so far away from her family, when she was here in this tower where they called her a mistake, a dangerous thing. It was ridiculous to care so much about the cruelty of other children, when there were vaster cruelties in her sight.

But why did they have to be so _mean?_

It wasn’t long before they figured out how attached she was to her book, her stupid book that she couldn’t even read, and collectively made it their mission to keep it away from her as much as possible.

Her back was starting to hurt from having to pick it up from the ground all the time.

It was the third day of this game. An older boy had knocked the book out of her hands again, and Loriel had been staring at the floor, red-faced and silent, when that human girl, Yvanne, appeared out of nowhere, yelled a lot of _very_ rude words, kicked him in the shins, and handed Loriel her book back.

Loriel took it with trembling hands. “Th-thanks,” she whispered.

“Don’t worry about it,” the girl said, her fists on her hips. “So, is Reddy Lunkhead ridiculous or what?”

It took Loriel a moment to realize that the girl was talking to her, and that she was talking about the Templar from the other day.

“I hate that guy.” Yvanne’s soft features screwed up in bitter hatred. “I hope a fear demon eats him.”

“That’s not nice,” Loriel said quietly, but she giggled.

“ _I’m_ not nice,” Yvanne declared, which Loriel thought was the most obviously false thing in the world. “Maybe I’ll summon a fear demon to eat him myself. A huge one. A huge, nasty one. And it’ll bite his stupid head right off.”

“You shouldn’t say such things,” Loriel said. “You’ll get in trouble.”

“That’s alright,” Yvanne said and conspiratorially leaned in, slinging an arm around Loriel’s shoulders. “I’m good at getting out of trouble.”

And in that way, Yvanne and Loriel became best friends.

\--

Loriel was quiet. It took Yvanne a long time to stop startling every time Loriel approached, appearing like a shadow at Yvanne’s side. She was quiet and curious and she listened, which was nice, because as far as Yvanne remembered, nobody had ever listened to her.

She was used to being ignored, and making a lot of noise to get attention—and later, to making a lot of noise and being ignored anyway. It was odd, to have the other girl look at her so closely with her huge black eyes, to have her listen so carefully and respond in her measured way, even to things Yvanne hadn’t intended anyone to here—her mutterings, her mumblings, every rude things she said under her breath.

When she had lived with her family—who would surely come for her soon—nobody had ever listened to Yvanne. She was the youngest child, and had no say about their frequent travels, or their avoidance of other people, or about the low means they lived in. Least of all her father, who spent more time staring at the faded drawing of his disappeared wife in his locket than he spent looking after his living children.

And he’d paid for it, too. The Templars had taken Yvanne, and now if he ever wanted to see her again, he would have to come for her himself.

“You’re the only nice thing about this shithole,” Yvanne said, satisfied at the tiny nervous smile such statements would earn her. “You’re just nice. Everyone else is such—ugh. Hey, when my father comes for me, how about we take you, too? You’d like our house. Even though it’s completely filthy all the time because Father is always too busy mourning Mother and drinking all day—”

Loriel would listen, and smile only a little sadly as Yvanne talked.

\--

Yvanne talked a lot. About how the food was terrible, and the Templars were jerks, and the older mages were just _collaborators,_ and that she was going to summon a huge demon and bust them all out of here someday, when she was a powerful mage. About her family—her distant father, her bratty younger siblings, her mysteriously disappeared mother. And how surely, her father was going to come for her, because he was a powerful man and he’d never stand for this.

But as time went on and Yvanne’s father did not come, her talk of her family died away. She talked of other things instead, such as which other apprentice she hated the most that week, or what her newest idea for killing all the Templars was.

Loriel remembered her parents as vague pale tired shapes, who argued more often than not, over the lack of food and the lack of money and the next-door neighbors and the damned shemlen. With every day that passed, they grew paler and vaguer in her memory, until they were naught but ghosts, who might never have existed in the first place.

The Circle was becoming Loriel’s home, now that she had Yvanne. And besides, she liked magic. She liked learning it. She liked that they taught her how to read. She liked weather-proof walls around her, and three guaranteed meals a day.

And most of all, she liked Yvanne. She liked Yvanne’s rants and Yvanne’s consternated expression when she didn’t understand something, Yvanne’s thrust-out chin and crooked mocking grin, Yvanne at mealtimes flicking food from her spoon at whoever had displeased her that day, Yvanne crawling into her bed at night, seeking company and warmth in the chilly tower.

It was good to have a friend.

Yvanne would see one day, that it wasn’t so bad here. She would see that the Circle was necessary—it had to be, or else why would anyone dare allow it to exist? Besides, Yvanne was not from an alienage. She did not know how the world worked. But one day she’d realize, that it wasn’t so bad.

After all, she had a friend here now, too.

\--

Loriel’s second friend in Kinloch became a boy named Jowan.

Once Yvanne had successfully scared away Loriel’s bullies, they moved on to Jowan. He was pudgy, and nervous, and was always getting into trouble. Consequently, he was an easy target for helpless children seeking to have power over something, anything at all.

Within a few weeks, Loriel claimed him.

“Why do you even talk to him?” Yvanne complained. “He’s always getting in trouble, and getting _you_ in trouble, even though you never do anything wrong. Why should you have to get him out of trouble all the time?”

“You’re always getting in trouble,” Loriel pointed out. “And I’m always getting you out.”

“Exactly,” Yvanne said. “You don’t need two of us.”

“He’s nice,” Loriel said. “And he studies with me. You never study with me.”

“I don’t need to study,” Yvanne sniffed. “And he’s always laughing at jokes that aren’t even funny. And he’s so twitchy. That kid is trouble.”

Loriel shrugged. “You’re trouble.”

Which sort of hurt, when she put it like that, even though it was true.

Jowan was okay, honestly. It was mostly just that now that he and Loriel were friends, Yvanne had to pummel anyone who messed with _either_ of them, which was twice the work.

\--

“Why don’t you have more friends?” Loriel asked suddenly one afternoon.

Yvanne raised an eyebrow. She was in the middle of retwisting her hair. “What kind of a question is that?”

“Why do you only ever talk to me?” Loriel said. “You could have lots of friends. You can get people to like you. You don’t have to just be with me all the time, I don’t need to be pitied.” She remembered how much her parents hated to be pitied. No matter what means they lived by, how dire their straits, pity was the death blow that they would never abide.

“What’s pity got to do with it?” Yvannne said. “I don’t want to talk to anyone else. They’re garbage. Remember how they treated you? I don’t need to associate with garbage like that.”

“I don’t think they’re garbage. They’re just…” She paused to consider what they were, and decided: “Sad, and scared.”

“Pft. You think that about the Templars, too?”

The only other person Yvanne cared for at all was a blond Ander boy. They’d become friends after he’d tried to escape the tower by swimming across the lake in their second year at Kinloch. When he’d been dragged back, soaking wet and scowling, Yvanne had snuck him a thumbs-up and a grin, and gotten one back.

Loriel didn’t like him.

Not only had he ruined outdoor time for everyone else, he caused trouble. And that was fine for him, but if Yvanne was causing trouble _with_ him, that meant she could be punished, and Loriel wouldn’t always be there to get her out of it.

Loriel missed going outside. Now she never got to feel the sun on her skin. If he had just accepted that the Circle was a necessity, they would have still gotten to wade in the lake and run in the sparse grass at the shore. Now they didn’t even have that.

And she was pretty certain that you weren’t supposed to smoke elfroot, whatever that terrible boy said.

\--

Loriel had been called _death-child_ , for the cloud of murk and rot that followed her, that made others sick and weary just by being near her. Now that she knew it to be an affinity for entropy magic, she could devotedly study it. If she had an affinity for it, she reasoned, she could get good at it. _Really_ good. Maybe even better than anybody else had ever been, if she tried hard enough.

That didn’t make it come any easier. She had to study all the time to stay ahead—although, she supposed that was better than studying all the time just to end up failing anyway, like poor Jowan.

But Yvanne never studied, and seemed to have an affinity for everything. Magic came as naturally to her as people did.

“You know,” Loriel would say, “I bet you could be best in the whole class. I bet you could be the youngest Harrowed mage ever.”

“Pft,” was Yvanne’s most frequent response. “Who cares about being the best-trained rat in the trap?”

Loriel would pout reproachfully. “I think magic’s interesting.”

“Magic’s what landed us here in the first place,” Yvanne would remind her. “Magic’s shit, and this place is shit.”

And Loriel would not remind her that they had no choice about the place, and would say nothing about making the best of a bad situation, because if she did, Yvanne would be hurt, and say something hurtful back, and stomp off by herself, and Loriel wouldn’t see her again until the end of the day.

At least she had Irving. Her lessons with him had become more frequent. Sometimes he took it easy on her, and ended lessons early to serve weak herb tea. It was a great comfort and luxury in the cold tower.

“You are lonely,” he observed, pouring the water from the dented kettle, warmed upon magical fire.

Loriel took the cup, allowing it to warm her hands, and did not respond.

“That is understandable,” the old mage said. “You are quickly outstripping your peers. Of course you feel alone.”

“I am?” Loriel said, startled. She had always assumed herself rather slow compared to everyone else, despite her own hopes, despite Irving’s interest in her.

“You most certainly are,” Irving assured, squeezing her shoulder. “You are very young, and already you are capable of much.”

Loriel stared into her tea. “I don’t feel that I am. I feel so behind. There’s so much I can’t do.”

“Ah, but you see, that is exactly why you are so talented. You are so deeply aware of your lacks, of all the places you might still develop to, that you feel behind. But I assure you that this is not so.”

Loriel looked up at him. He smiled indulgently. “Keep up with your studies,” he said, “And you will go far. Farther, perhaps, than any mage here at Kinloch has ever gone.”

“Do you really think so?”

The old man nodded thoughtfully. “Already you have mastered much of what is known of entropy magic. You truly do have a talent for it. I would not be surprised if you became one of the strongest wielders of it in recorded history.”

Loriel could not help but glow with pride at that.

\--

When Loriel was twelve, she was already an advanced student. Irving’s protégé. Easily the best of all the other apprentices. It had begun to win her friends—or at least, people who would be nice to her and ask her for help with things, compliment her skills. A couple of the younger apprentices were in absolute awe of her.

Yvanne tried not to resent her for it. It was wrong to resent something that made Loriel’s face light up so often. Even though it meant that Loriel didn’t even need her anymore, that she had never really needed her. Her magical prowess had been solely her own doing, and finally she was reaping its benefits.

Yvanne still resented it.

Yvanne had stubbornly refused to be taught anything for as long as she could, until she turned thirteen and her inclination to spirit magic became impossible to hide. Tiny spirits were drawn to her across the Veil, little wisps that had barely any brains at all, and yet, held a strong desire to flock to Yvanne.

There was no mistaking it. The Fade called to her stronger than to other mages.

Eventually she could no longer escape tutelage as a spirit healer.

She hated it. She hated Wynne, the old woman who fancied herself her surrogate mother. She hated her softness and her sternness in equal measure. She hated the work, which was tedious and difficult. She hated being lectured at, and being told what to do, and the wretched old woman’s _expectations._

It wouldn’t have been so bad—Anders was a spirit healer, too—but he was so much better than her at it, and older, so they were never learning the same thing at the same time. And Anders seemed to _like_ learning it, the traitor. Yvanne had thought they’d been united in their hatred for this stupid tower, but Anders seemed so ready to throw himself into any magic that was beneficial to people, whatever magic would make him liked.

It just figured. _He’d_ set the family barn on fire. Loriel had been killing animals just by existing. All Yvanne had done was make her bratty sister’s hair stand on end to annoy her. If they locked up everyone who ever annoyed their sisters, all of Thedas would be behind bars. It just wasn’t fair.

And anyway, Yvanne’s magic was _hers._ She’d been afflicted with it, stuck into this tower for it. Why should she use it to help anyone, if all anyone outside the walls of Kinloch would say about that was that she was a mistake and a curse? That was how she’d thought of mages herself, until she’d found out she was one. That was how Anders described the outside world, on his ill-fated sojourns. People were petty, an cruel-minded, and mean. Why should she learn to help people like that?

Yvanne would sooner have learned to shoot lightning.

\--

The first time Loriel caught Yvanne snooping through the books on blood magic, she grew still, and nearly forgot how to breathe.

“What are you doing?” she hissed.

Yvanne rolled her eyes. “Just looking.”

“At—at—” Loriel couldn’t bring herself to say it. What if someone heard? What if someone _saw?_

“Relax. They’re here publically available for anybody to look at, aren’t they? If they kill me for looking at something they set out themselves, whose fault is that?”

“They do that to see whose unnaturally curious about such things,” Loriel said tightly. “You can’t seriously be--?”

Yvanne snorted and tossed the book over her shoulder. “No. Of course I’m not.”

Loriel hesitated, as though the book itself would poison her if she touched it. Then, she bent and picked it up, which had landed spine-upward, smoothed out the creased pages. She replaced it carefully on the shelf. “So then why…?”

“A girl likes to dream the impossible, Loriel. Let me live.”

Loriel was not satisfied. She grabbed Yvanne by the wrists before she could say something dismissive and depart. “Yvanne, promise me,” she urged. “No blood magic, ever.”

Yvanne rolled her eyes. “Yeah, whatever, Loriel. Sure.”

Loriel’s heart skipped a beat. She squeezed, hard. “ _Promise me.”_

There was a heavy pause. “Alright, geez,” Yvanne mumbled, averting her gaze. “No blood magic, not that I was thinking about it.”

Even thinking about it, let alone _looking_ at the books, would be enough to damn her. “Look me in the eye,” Loriel insisted.

“You’re not going to stop going on about this, are you?” Yvanne sighed and then met her eyes. “No blood magic, I promise.”

“Good,” Loriel sighed, letting go. “Good.”

Yvanne was always going on about how she was going to summon a demon and become an abomination, how she was going to learn the most dreadful blood magic possible and turn it upon their tormentors.

It had always just been talk. Yvanne had never actually done anything about. Loriel had been sure she never would.

But now, with her looking through…

Loriel would just have to claim that it was _her_ that had been curious. That Yvanne had only done it because she’d asked her to. A good mage like her, a model mage, would never be put under serious suspicion. She might be punished, but she could take punishment. It would be light, comparatively. And it would be worth it.

\--

“We should run away.”

“Shh. The Templars will hear.”

“I don’t care.”

“ _I_ do.”

“Fine. Sorry. But we still should.”

“We’d get caught, Yvanne. Right away. They’d just haul us back and whip us.”

“But maybe they wouldn’t.”

“Be realistic.”

“I don’t want to be realistic! I can shoot lightning out of my fingers! Why in the Void should I have to be realistic?”

“Shh.”

It was a conversation they had about every other month.

\--

Loriel wondered why Yvanne never ran.

Maker knew she had an example to go by. Anders had escaped three times since they’d been there, and the two of them were thick as thieves.

They could have run together, but Yvanne could probably have done it on her own. She was so clever, so fearless, so naturally talented. She was a spirit healer, too—she could probably have gotten the people out there to love her, to protect her.

That never worked for Anders, but Loriel figured that was because he was annoying.

Yvanne, though. Loriel was sure Yvanne could do it.

Loriel didn’t even entertain the thought herself. She was small and weak and reeked of death. Nobody in their right minds would want her around. They’d turn her in immediately, and that was if she even got away from the tower. People in the tower liked her well enough _now,_ now that she could help them with their studies and put in a good word with the Templars, but outside these walls, they’d eat her alive.

The thought of running with Yvanne, though…just the two of them, against the world, sunlight on their faces, grass under their feet, their hands clasped tight…that was a tempting thought.

Some days, when she had stared at the smooth grey walls of her home for a few hours too long, when her focus began to wander, when every bone and breath within her ached to feel a wind, to smell a market, to see the sky from something other than the high narrow windows—she thought that if Yvanne suggested running then, she would have taken her by the hand and followed her anywhere in the world.

Sometimes she came near suggesting it herself.

But if they were caught, if Loriel’s short legs and weak lungs betrayed them, she had no illusions who would suffer most. It would not be Loriel, the protégé, the good mage, who knew all the Templars’ names and had always been polite to them, who had worked so hard and so long to circumvent the problem of her pointy ears. No, it would be the bratty problem girl, the sullen lightning-mage who snarled and wrenched and never made anything easy, and had even been spotted once looking through books on blood magic.

Running would just give them the excuse they needed. They’d take the chance to accuse her of blood magic. Loriel wouldn’t be able to protect her.

Yvanne trapped and unhappy was bad. Yvanne, her back roped with scars, her wrists rubbed raw from manacles, a brand on her forehead and the light gone from her eyes…that was worse. How selfish could Loriel be, to put her at risk of that?

The tower was not ideal, but it was home. She could live this way. Perhaps Yvanne couldn’t, but Loriel could.

One day, Loriel knew, Yvanne would leave her behind in this tower. She would call down a storm, as she was becoming so good at, escape in the chaos, and never be seen again, and Loriel would live out her days at the center of the lake, remembering her fondly for the rest of her life, unto her dying breath.

She could only hope that day would come later rather than sooner.

The problem was, Loriel thought, listening to Yvanne’s steady breathing, was that they had grown together like vines upon a tree, so bound up that there was no use trying to tell one from the other. Even now, they were tangled together in Loriel’s bed, to which Yvanne still came sometimes, though they were older now, and not quite the innocent children they had been once. Loriel’s head was tucked under Yvanne’s chin, her long twists of hair fanning out across the pillow. She had fallen asleep with her fingers resting on Loriel’s jaw. Their legs folded together like braided knots, for warmth. Winter in the stone tower of Kinloch Hold, which stood in the middle of a frozen lake, was brutal.

It was terrible, Loriel thought, listening to the other girl’s heartbeat, that so much of her had become wrapped up in another soul—so when that soul finally took her chance to fly free of these walls, she would be taking the better part of Loriel with her.

\--

Yvanne didn’t think for a moment of running. Not seriously.

Anders had offered, the last two times he’d made the attempt. It had taken her no time at all to refuse.  He’d gone alone, and been brought back alone. Maybe if she’d gone with him, they wouldn’t have been caught. Maybe the two of them would have had a chance. Maybe he even resented her for not going with him. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Yvanne didn’t care. She wouldn’t run.

Not without Loriel.

And Loriel would never run.

Of course she wouldn’t. She had it too good. She loved magic. She had Irving’s protection. The other apprentices liked her now—she hadn’t even needed Yvanne’s help with that. Even the Templars all liked her. Yvanne saw them smile at her sometimes.

Of course it was sensible that they should like her. Who wouldn’t like Loriel? Loriel was lovely and kind and intelligent. Anyone with brains would like her.

So why would she ever leave?

She wouldn’t. She’d said as much. Yvanne would spin her wild plans, her castles in the sky, and Loriel would calmly knock them down.

It would be stupid to run. Yvanne knew that. It was proved to her every time she watched Anders get dragged back, proved to her every time she had to watch him slink around the tower like an kicked dog  for weeks afterward, avoiding her, avoiding everyone. Loriel was right. That was simply how it was.

Only Yvanne wouldn’t have cared. She would have called down lightning to strike this stone prison and made the break for it, idiotic or not. She would be free, if only for a moment. If only to show them that she wasn’t their creature.

But what would be the point of that, without Loriel?

The people out there would hate her for her magic. She could never re-enter society. She would be an apostate, an outcast.

With Loriel, it was a tempting thought. The two of them, a little cottage in the woods, the trees and grass and sunlight…

Without her…lonely, crushing. Pointless. A world of petty people who would hate her. A family that hadn’t bothered to come for her.

Besides, if she ran, who’d take care of Loriel?

No. Better stay. There was nothing for her out there anymore. All that she had left to care about in the world was locked up with her.

Yvanne still came to Loriel’s bed some nights, though Loriel never took the initiative to come to hers. That hurt, just a bit, but Loriel was warm and soft and curled around her just so, and until the Templars dragged her away—or until Loriel told her to go—Yvanne did not intend to stop coming.

The problem, Yvanne thought, drifting off to sleep with her arms around the other girl, was that they had grown and fused together, like branches from two separate trees. Loriel had rooted Yvanne here, captured her in the center of their being, and now there would be no escaping—not without cutting off one of her own limbs.

Yvanne only wished she had found Loriel rooted some other places, and not this prison.


	2. Chapter 2

Loriel could pinpoint the first time she thought of Yvanne as _attractive,_ as opposed to simply beautiful–which she was, but that was a fact obvious to anyone with functioning eyes.

The first time Loriel realized Yvanne was attractive was when she first saw lust in a Templar’s eyes.

Loriel had been getting Yvanne out of trouble with the Templars and the Senior Enchanters for years now. Even before then, Loriel had known how to watch out for herself in the alienage. She could sense trouble. It was with this trained instinct for danger that the young man’s interest set off every alarm she possessed.

It meant wheedling the watch rotation out of an older Templar, memorizing it, and keeping Yvanne out of his way at any cost. Loriel knew the kinds of things that happened to mages that Templars found attractive. Here she was glad for her dull hair and moon face. Nobody would ever look on her with lust, she could be sure of that.

Yvanne, though...surely _lots_ of people could see how attractive Yvanne was, how more and more attractive she became every day, as though she was blossoming, re-becoming. And all of those people were a potential danger to her.

But it wasn’t just Templars. It was other mages. Other apprentices who Yvanne had in the not-too-distant past punched in the teeth, now reduced to stammering nervously in her presence.

For a while Yvanne seemed not to notice. But eventually she began to disappear in between classes, and return disheveled and flushed.

Loriel wasn’t stupid. She knew what it meant.

And she hated it.

It just wasn’t fair.

Of course people wanted Yvanne. Of course she was running around doing this grown-up thing and Loriel wasn’t—she was a year older, and so beautiful, and Loriel was just…

She flushed furiously to think about it.

 But she hated every reminder of it, and made a point not to say much to her after she returned looking all tousled and rumpled and…like _that._

She hardly ever even talked to Loriel about it. Which was what hurt most of all.

\--

When they were done, they sat on the floor of the closet in awkward, sweaty silence.

“That was weird,” Yvanne said eventually.

“Yeah, a bit,” said Anders.

The abortive attempt at conversation ceased as their breathing gradually slowed.

“Maybe you just shouldn’t fuck your friends,” Yvanne reasoned. “Like, it’s weird. You know someone so well, and then doing _that_ with them? Weird.”

“Hey,” Anders said, “I’m starting to feel a little insulted.”

“What? You saying it wasn’t just me?”

“Maybe _you’re_ the one who made it weird.”

She punched him on the arm.

“I didn’t make it weird,” she said. She paused. “Okay, maybe I made it weird. Honestly, Anders, no offense, but I think I just don’t like boys.”

“Don’t like boys? Then how d’you explain Feron and Geoffrey and Wilas and—”

“They were meatheads! I figured if it was someone I actually _liked,_ it wouldn’t be so…ugh. But I guess not.”

“Wow. Lucky me. The guy who finally convinced Yvanne Amell to swear off men forever.”

“Men? Don’t flatter yourself, little boy.”

“Hey,” he protested. “I’m older than you.”

“And twice as stupid. Be quiet before someone hears us.”                                                

“Relax. It’s Ser Hector whose patrolling this wing tonight, and he’s nearly deaf after taking that crossbow bolt to his stupid bucket helmet. He’s probably asleep right now, content with a job well done.”

Yvanne relaxed somewhat. She pulled her robe the rest of the way down and started fixing her hair. “Wish we had some root.”

“Jan says she’ll sneak some more out of the stores next week, maybe.”

“Anyway.” Yvanne smirked. “I’m surprised you even agreed to this. I thought you liked boys now.”

Anders snorted, retying his own hair into its customary stupid little ponytail. “I always liked boys. Also, girls. Also, assorted others. What’s your point?”

“Sounds like you like a particular boy these days.”

Anders’ freckled face was so pale that she could see him color even in near pitch-blackness. “Karl? We’re just friends.”

“Gosh, and here I hadn’t even mentioned Karl.”

“He’s my good friend.”

“Right, yeah, your good friend whose cock you want in your ass.”

Anders grinned and shrugged. “Well, you know. In a friendly way. Friendship. Cock-based friendship.”

“You should seduce him. Friendlily.”

“Definitely. I’ve got a plan.” His grin grew wider and his eyes flashed, the way they always did when he was scheming, though usually scheming to escape. “Can you make sure there’s no Templars in the library tomorrow at dinner?”

Yvanne grinned back. “No,” she said, “But I’ll bet Loriel can.”

\--

“What’s it like?”

Yvanne looked away from the window, blinking. Her habit of staring out the high tower windows had increased recently. “Hm?”

Loriel blushed. Yvanne was really going to make her say it out loud.

“You know,” she said, lowering her voice. “Sex.”

“Oh.” Yvanne bit her lip. For some reason, Loriel couldn’t tear her eyes away from the spot where her bright teeth met her full lower lip. “It’s not so great, really.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better,” Loriel huffed.

Yvanne held up her hands. “I’m not, honest.”

“Then why d’you run around doing it with everyone who looks at you crossways?”

“I don’t do that.”

“Oh, come off it. I swear, you’ve ended up in a closet with just about everyone our age except me.”

Yvanne grinned. “Didn’t realize you were jealous.”

Loriel’s stomach turned. “Stop that,” she said sternly. “I was joking. You know that’s not at all what I mean.”

Yvanne’s grin evaporated. “Look, it’s just something to do to relieve the boredom.” She shrugged. “And we’re not supposed to be doing it. Can’t have the aberrant mistakes in the eyes of the Maker _breeding,_ right?” Her lip curled sardonically. “That makes it fun. Like a good _fuck you_ to them all.”

Loriel must not have looked very convinced, because Yvanne kept talking. “No, really, it’s not worth all the fuss. Boys are pretty unpleasant, honestly. They’re sweaty and hairy and they all want you to put their pricks in your mouth.” She made a face. “And then they want you to swallow what comes out.”

“Gross.”

“See? Not worth it. Don’t bother.” Yvanne shrugged. “It’s fun, I guess. But afterwards you just feel sort of empty.” Her gaze returned to the window. “It’s just something to do.”

“You know what else is a thing to do? Studying.”

Yvanne made a disgusted noise. “You’re _impossible._ Don’t you think of anything else besides pleasing Irving? _”_

“I’m serious. We’re going to be Harrowed soon.”

Yvanne got up so quickly the chair she’d been sitting in fell back. “I don’t need to listen to this.”

And then she was gone, leaving Loriel alone to relive the brief conversation over and over. _Didn’t realize you were jealous._

Loriel groaned and put her head down on the table.

\--

Silence in the library.

Loriel stared at the sentence she had been attempting to read for almost half an hour now.

“Jowan,” she said finally, realizing that the sentence wasn’t going to get read just then, or any time soon. What book even was this?

The boy startled, knocking over an inkwell and hurriedly dashing to clean it up. His eyes had been darting frantically back and forth over the text, attempting to absorb as much of the information as possible. It wouldn’t work, Loriel knew, helping him sop up the ink. She’d have to tutor him later.

“Sorry,” said Jowan. “What?”

“I was just,” Loriel hesitated, “wondering…” What _was_ she wondering? “Jowan, you haven’t got a crush on me, have you?”

He stared at her. “What?”

“It was a yes or no question, Jowan.”

He spent another long moment boggling, and then broke down into a loud belly laugh. “Maker, no!”

Loriel colored, snatching up the book she hadn’t been reading. “Well, I’m sorry! I didn’t realize I was _quite_ so repulsive!”

“Wait, no!” Jowan leaned forward and grabbed her by the sleeve, knocking over the mostly-empty inkwell again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant that, you know, we’d been friends for so long. It’s hard to have a crush on someone when you remember them being eight and eating their boogers.”

Suddenly, all the color drained out of Jowan’s face. “Wait,” he said. “Do _you_ have a crush on me?”

If Loriel was blushing before, she was flaming now. “No!”

“Because, oh Maker, if you had a crush on me, I’d have to tell—”

“I don’t!”

“Okay, good!”

They sat at the library desk, blushing at each other for a while. Loriel regarded him. No, she definitely _didn’t_ have a crush on Jowan. She wondered why. He was her good friend. Sure, he was a bit awkward, but so was Loriel. Mages in glass towers oughtn’t throw stones. He was her closest male friend. Surely she ought to have developed a crush on him by now?

But she just hadn’t.

“Hold on,” she said, a realization dawning upon her. “You’d have to tell who, exactly?”

“Uh, nobody.” He began stacking the books he’d been using together, righting the inkwell again and avoiding her gaze.

“Jowan!”

“Nobody!”

“Jowan, you’re the worst at lying! Come back here and tell me!”

Jowan wasn’t nearly as good as Yvanne at making a swift and graceful exit from the library, and almost tripped over his robes on the way out.

\--

“You know, as far as sex goes…”

“Mm?” Loriel said sleepily. She had had long advanced exercises with First Enchanter Irving that day, away from everyone else. She and Yvanne were back to back, sharing heat and presence, but they had not been talking.

Yvanne didn’t reply.

“What about sex?” Loriel said irritably, feeling more wakeful.

“Just thinking.”

“About what?”

Another long pause. Then, finally, “It’s definitely a lot better with girls.”

Loriel closed her eyes again and yawned. “Oh. Huh.”

“I mean, not _that_ different. Bodies are just bodies, right? But girls are just better, in general.”

“Mhm,” said Loriel. I didn’t know you could do it with girls _,_ she thought, and fell asleep.

Yvanne was already gone by the next morning, and Loriel took an extra couple minutes to lie in bed and remember the past night’s conversation. Huh, she thought. I didn’t know you could do it with girls.

I didn’t know you could do it with girls, she thought over breakfast with Jowan, who was worried about an examination that afternoon.

She went to her lessons and sat right at the front, as she usually did. I didn’t know you could do it with girls, she thought, all through lessons, all through dinner all through the motions of preparing for bed.

Yvanne had been called to assist with a woman in labor that night, so Loriel fell asleep alone. I didn’t know you could do it with girls, she thought again, mystified.

\--

There was a new Templar at Kinloch Hold. He was barely more than a child, fresh-faced and golden-haired, and he was allegedly very attractive, as Yvanne had gathered from the other female apprentices.

Within a few weeks, he had fallen in love with Yvanne, who hated him.

“I hate his face,” she said.

“And his stupid noodle hair,” she said.

“And the way that he pants after me all the time,” she said. “Can you imagine anything more vile?”

“Let me think,” Loriel said absently, tapping a piece of charcoal against the table. “Okay, got it. Taking a potion of putridity and then having a hex of effusive bodily fluids cast on you.”

“Nope,” said Yvanne, crossing her arms. “Not nearly as gross.”

“Darn,” said Loriel, smiling awkwardly. “I guess I failed your little challenge.”

“Don’t worry, Lori. It was impossible to win all along, because nothing is as vile as that tragedy in a skirt.”

Loriel chewed the end of her quill pen. “I don’t know. I think it could be worse.”

Yvanne blanched. “Lori. A _Templar_ is taking an interest in me. How is that not the worst possible scenario?”

Loriel actually rolled her eyes. “Please, half the Templars in this tower have been eyeing you for years. At least Cullen is a little cute.”

Yvanne sat frozen in sudden fear. “For years?”

“Didn’t you know?”                                            

“And you think he’s cute?!”

Loriel shrugged, not meeting her eyes. “I guess a little. He’s young, isn’t he? And he’ll carry your books for you if you ask.”

“He _carries your books for you?”_

“He’d do it for you too, if you asked. I’m sure he’d do anything at all for you.”

“D’you think he’d jump in the lake for me?”

“Hmm. Maybe?” Loriel shrugged again in that infuriating way of hers. “You’re lucky, Yvanne. Everyone wants you, everyone thinks you’re pretty.”

“Not everyone. Templars. That’s different,” Yvanne pointed out. “And that’s awful.”

“I guess so. I just think that particular Templar is a little cute.”

Was Yvanne imagining the cruelty in her friends voice?

“You do _not_ have a crush on a Templar.”

“You’re right,” Loriel said with a quick smirk. “I don’t.”

“Lori!” Yvanne dragged her fingers down her face. “I’ve never even see you so much as glance at anyone else before and suddenly you’re going doughy over some stupid Templar? A pretty face can’t make up for a rotting soul.”

Loriel rolled her eyes, and Yvanne’s stomach turned. Didn’t she know what could happen? What she had, by her repeated timely interventions, prevented from happening to Yvanne?

“You’re playing with fire, Lori. Seriously, keep away from him. He’s a creep.”

“I don’t play with fire,” Loriel retorted. “I’m an entropy specialist.”

“You’re just doing this to piss me off, aren’t you?”

“Oh, can you get off my case? What do you care who I think is cute? Why don’t you find _your_ blonde idiot and take him off to a closet, I’m sure he’ll be up to relieving your frustrations with me.”

It took Yvanne a long second to realize what Loriel was talking about. “What, Anders?” she said, and grimaced. “Don’t be ridiculous. Ever since he got with Karl he hasn’t touched anyone else.” She paused. “Honestly, he barely even talks to me anymore. He’s in _love._ ”

Loriel stopped walking, nearly causing Yvanne to bump into her. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, I hadn’t realized. Well, good.”

Hadn’t realized? Did she even live in the same tower as the rest of them? The Karl and Anders situation had been prime gossip material throughout the entire tower for months now.

It seemed more and more, of late, that Yvanne chased after Loriel, vying her attention, and every day that Loriel slipped further and further away. Even when the cold and the emptiness drove Yvanne to ignore her misgivings and crawl to Loriel’s narrow bed, it seemed different. More and more Loriel left space between them, shrunk away from her, nearly seeming angry at the presence. But never did she ask Yvanne to leave, either.

“Good?” she questioned. “You mean that he’s in love?”

Loriel blinked, then turned and kept walking. “Yes. That’s what I mean.”

Yvanne stomped after her. “That’s not what you mean.”

Loriel made a noncommittal noise in her throat. “I’m just saying it’s good that he won’t be getting you into trouble anymore. You need to worry about passing your Harrowing. You’re older than me—in a year or two, it might be your time.”

Yvanne snorted. The Harrowing seemed about as distant as the sky outside. “It’s ridiculous that we even _have_ a Harrowing. You get dragged out of your bed in the middle of the night for some mysterious purpose, and if you fail you just disappear. That doesn’t seem cruel to you?”

Loriel turned so violently that the book she held loosely flung out of her hand and landed on the floor with a loud thump. They both flinched, listening for Templar boots, and when none came: “It doesn’t matter that it’s cruel. It’s necessary. These are our _lives.”_

She jerked her chin up to look Yvanne in the eye. Yvanne hadn’t realized how long it had been since her friend had met her eyes directly. Loriel had frequently bemoaned that her eyes were ‘creepy’, which Yvanne had never understood, but suddenly it struck her just how very arresting they were, wide inky pools that obscured as much as they expressed.

 _Necessary._ Every time Loriel parroted such nonsense, Yvanne could hardly stand it. How could anyone truly believe…

But Loriel was looking at her with those eyes so filled with _something_ that it nearly stopped her heart. “Please, Yvanne. You deserve better than dying in this place for something as stupid as not studying enough. Promise me you’ll take learning magic more seriously. So in another couple years you’ll be ready.” She took one of Yvanne’s hands in both her own, so soft and pale and small. “Please.”

Yvanne held the gaze for a moment longer. “Alright, alright, I promise. I’ll really hit the books.” She dropped her gaze to their linked hands. How many times had they held hands over their lives together? To stay together in a crowd, for comfort, just to have something to hold on to? Hundreds of times at least. Loriel’s hands were as familiar to Yvanne as her own—the stubby chewed on nails, the knobby knuckles, the long ring finger, the little checkmark-shaped scar on her left palm from a distant childhood accident.

_You deserve better than…_

Suddenly that touch and that gaze burned like coals. Panic rose in her chest like the crackling of an incipient lightning spell. She needed to leave.

“Promise,” she mumbled again.

\--

Yvanne was not Harrowed a few years later. She was Harrowed the following week. Loriel knew because when the Templars took her, they had been together in the night—though of late, Yvanne’s presence in her bed made Loriel feel like she was suffocating in the sheets, burning in her own bed.

Loriel often woke in the night before returning to sleep. When she woke and found Yvanne gone, she knew she had been taken—Yvanne slept like a dead log, and never went anywhere at night. She’d lock her arms around Loriel and refuse to let go until Loriel pried herself out.

(And she drooled.)

Yvanne was there, and then she wasn’t.

Loriel sat in the bed, shaking and staring at her hands. It was unfair, she thought, her eyes filling with tears. Yvanne was practically a child still, same as her. It was too early. They shouldn’t get to take her so soon.

The cold sun rose some hours later. Loriel hadn’t slept. Horrors danced in her mind, like the entropic constructs she conjured in her lessons, and it took all her considerable will to banish them for the imaginary fancies they were.

Yvanne was not at breakfast.

Yvanne was not at morning lessons.

Yvanne was not at lunch.

It was Loriel’s understanding that Harrowings were usually over by morning, one way or another. If an apprentice simply disappeared, then, well…

Loriel’s heart crushed itself to a fraction of its usual space. Would she ever see her again? Was she dead upon a Templar’s blade? Or would she reappear soon, the sunburst brand on her forehead? Loriel’s mind went in loops, trying to decide which was worse. An Yvanne stripped of all her life and vigor, or an Yvanne stripped of everything entirely? She knew which Yvanne would have preferred. Yvanne would sooner have been dead than have her soulless husk made servant to her jailers.

But Loriel, selfish, miserable Loriel, would have preferred to have her Tranquil than to have her not at all.

Yvanne was not at afternoon lessons.

Loriel was sure she would never have a coherent thought again. She was sure she would be crushed by grief for as long as she lived. Her own Harrowing would go as well as Yvanne’s surely had, and then at least they would be together in their failure. The weight of Jowan’s comforting hand on her shoulder meant almost nothing in the wake of such loss. The warmth of his shoulder as her tears stained his robes meant almost as little.

And then Yvanne appeared at dinner, in her new enchanter’s robes, a sway in her hip and a spring in her step.

“How about it, little children _?”_ She smirked. “Youngest mage ever to be successfully Harrowed at Kinloch Hold! How about that?”

Her voice was like a lightning bolt. Loriel sat frozen and dumbstruck in her seat. “You,” she said hoarsely, “you absolute jerk.”

“What? Jealous that I did it first? Relax, Lori. It’ll be your turn soon enough. You’ll be eating demons for breakfast before you know it.”

The world seemed thunderously loud and impossibly far away at once. Loriel moved toward her as though through water, her heart in her throat. When her arms closed around Yvanne’s waist, her body pressed against hers, it felt as though an eternity had passed. Heedless of the danger of showing such affection, heedless of that suffocating feeling, Loriel held her and could not resist the urge to cry. Yvanne’s arms encircled her, stroked her hair, murmured assurances into her ear, and all Loriel could think was how awful it had been to live without Yvanne—with the thought of no Yvanne—for less than even a day.

What a broken half-alive thing she had become, she thought, and held her tighter.


	3. Chapter 3

“So how are the enchanter’s quarters? I bet they’re much nicer than the apprentice ones.”

Yvanne pulled out of whatever thought was distracting her. “Yeah, they’re pretty nice.” She paused. “I miss you, though.”

“Don’t worry.” Loriel shrugged and put on a smile. “I’ll be Harrowed sooner or later. Anyway, maybe you shouldn’t come here. It’s one thing when it’s two apprentices, but when it’s an apprentice and an enchanter…”

“D’you think they’re really in love?”

Loriel blinked. “Who?”

“Karl and Anders.”

“He’s your friend, shouldn’t you know?”

“I don’t, though.” Yvanne stared down at her clasped hands in the dark. She looked so sleek, so grown-up in her new robes, though she’d had them for weeks and weeks now. “I mean, it’d be stupid, right? Falling in love in a place like this. You’d have to be a right fool to do it.”

“You thought Anders was, didn’t you? Back when it all just started.”

“I was being facetious, Lori. I figured he was infatuated, obsessed. In love with the idea of love. But it’s been all this time and they’re still, you know…ugh, it’s gross to even witness.”

Loriel leaned her cheek on her fist sleepily. “I think it’s cute. A good thing in a place like this. We’re not supposed to, but…”

“It’s never a good thing in a place like this,” Yvanne said sternly. “Anders always said that. That he’d find love outside this hellhole or not at all, because he was going to get out one day. But look at him now. He hasn’t even attempted an escape since they got together.”

 _And that’s awful,_ Loriel interpreted as the conclusion to that sentence. It hurt, but most things about Yvanne hurt. She had accepted as much, as the price of being Yvanne’s friend. People hurt you sometimes, just by existing.

“Maybe it’s not love, then. Maybe it really is just infatuation,” Loriel said, as though she remotely knew the difference.

“Yeah,” Yvanne said. “Maybe.”

Looking at her, her smooth dark skin barely illuminated by the weak moonlight, Loriel thought she might suffocate.

\--

Yvanne no longer had lessons, so when she heard the sound of struggle, she was able to run to the scene immediately.

Templar guarding the doorway prevented her entrance, but didn’t force her to leave the scene. Other mages had already gathered, more flocking behind her.

They wanted this to be an example.

“You can’t just _do_ that!” She heard Anders’ voice long before she saw him, coming down the hall.

“Now, now.” That was Irving. His voice was kind, and reeked of pity and the raw edge of contempt.

“You said you’d look out for me! And for him! You evil old fuck, you lied!”\

“Oh, my boy,” the old mage sighed. Irving liked Anders almost as much as liked Loriel. For all the good it did either of them. “Don’t you realize that this _is_ what’s best for both of you? And that even if it weren’t, that the needs of others supercede your own desires? Have I taught you _nothing?”_

She could see his face, tear-streaked and furiously blotchy. His fists were clenched by his sides. At the cusp of adulthood, he had grown tall—taller than Irving—and though he had been Harrowed weeks ago, he still looked like a rebellious, impetuous child.

“You didn’t even let me say goodbye.”

“It was for the best, my—”

“Don’t!” From a grown man, who wasn’t crying, it might have sounded commanding. “Don’t you dare! If you ever…if you so much as…the _Gallows…._ ”

Irving stepped back, and Knight Commander Greagoir stepped forward. “Anders, please,” Irving said, from behind the armored Tempar. “If you do not settle down, there is no telling what these men will do to keep you calm.”

“I hate you,” Anders said, and made the mistake of raising his hand. He might have been raising his hand to cast, or just to make a rude gesture—it didn’t matter. The Templars lashed out first with Silences, then with armored fists.

Yvanne looked away, but did not go.

They’d transferred Karl to the Gallows in Kirkwall. They needed someone with his knowledge of glyphs there. That was why. It was just business, as usual.

The other mages drifted away, averting their eyes respectfully, but Yvanne remained. When it was over Anders brushed past her like she wasn’t there. She didn’t miss the shame in his face. She didn’t take it personally.

“Show’s over,” the Templar barked. “Back to your duties, robe.”

Yvanne returned to her duties.

Business as usual, she thought.

Within a week, Anders had escaped again.

\--

Months had gone by, and there was still no sign of Anders. It had been his longest escape yet. Many of the mages murmured that he’d get away for good this time. If anyone was going to, it would be him.

“Of course they’ll get him,” Cullen was saying lightly. “He’s a danger to himself and others out there. Much safer in here, wouldn’t you say?”

“Mhm,” Loriel said blandly. “Your armor is looking shiny today, Cullen.”

The young Templar puffed up with pride. “Thank you,” he said. “I polished it just last night. Got to be looking sharp for this job. We Templars are a symbol of heroism to the people, and…”

Loriel was saved from having to resist her urge to point out of this tower, he was hardly a symbol of anything to the people in general—mages here not counting as people, by his estimate—by the timely arrival of Yvanne. The soft eyes meant for Loriel narrowed to suspicious slits at the sight of Cullen, who clammed up at the sight of her.

“A-Amell,” he stammered. “Pleased to see you doing well. I mean, of course you’re doing well. Did you know I was at your Harrowing? I was assigned to—”

“Loriel,” Yvanne interrupted. “There is something I must discuss with you. Let’s go.”

She had seized Loriel by the wrist and set off for the nearest doorway before  Loriel could protest. “Terribly sorry,” she said back to the blushing Templar. “It must be truly important, please, we can catch up later, don’t take this the wrong way…”

When they were out of earshot, Yvanne stopped to fume. “I hate when you do that,” she said.

“Do what? Maintain good relations with people here?”

“People? He’s a Templar. Cozening up to him like that…you’ll give him the wrong idea.”

“How are you so sure it is the wrong idea?” Loriel shot back.

Yvanne stared at her. Her blush was nearly undetectable, due to the darkness of her skin, but Loriel could still tell.

“We need to talk,” Yvanne said.

“No, we don’t,” said Loriel.

“You’ve been acting strangely since I was Harrowed,” Yvanne insisted. “What’s all this shit with Cullen? You don’t really like him. You’ve been playing all the Templars in here like fiddles since we got here. You know you’ve saved my hide more times than I can count because of it, and I _know_ you’re not stupid.”

“Yvanne, stop.”

“And you keep acting, like—like I’m about to disappear at any moment. You’re barely even looking at me.” Loriel was determinedly not looking at her now.

“Loriel,” Yvanne said, and her voice cracked.

“Maybe I’m afraid you’re going to disappear at any moment,” Loriel said lowly, nearly hissing, “because you already _did._ And then you—you came swanning back in like it was nothing, like I hadn’t spent the whole day feeling like my heart had been ripped out.”

Yvanne drew back as though slapped.

“And maybe you can swan around irreverently, not a care in the world, scraping through by the skin of your teeth but I—I can’t take that anymore. Sometimes I don’t know if I can take _you_ anymore _._ ”

Loriel stood there, head spinning. It hadn’t become true until she’d said it—shouted it—but now there was no taking it back, no making it untrue.

“And maybe I like flirting with Cullen because—oh, I don’t know! You go around fucking whoever you want, people you don’t even care about. Why shouldn’t I? I have to live in this Tower all my life, maybe I should get used to it instead of, watching you all flushed and rumpled, and having …”

The sound of armored feet echoed down the hall. If they were caught idling, they’d be shouted at, possibly penalized. They ducked into an adjacent broom closet almost by habit, like when they’d been children, waiting for the boots to pass.

“Do you really feel that way?” Yvanne said lowly.

“No,” Loriel said immediately. “No, I was just angry. I didn’t mean to say that.”

Yvanne was quiet. “Figures you’d get sick of me eventually, right? Well, whatever, Lori. I’ve always been too much. That’s why they threw me in here, right?”

“Yvanne, no, stop it.”

“Troublesome, loud Yvanne, oh, isn’t she just so much? Look, now she’s making pretty lights with her hands, well, isn’t that just a perfect excuse to lock her in a tower forever. Oh, goodie, isn’t life so much better this way? Now if she’s too much those noble Templars can just smite her, that’ll keep her good and quiet.”

“Stop!”

Yvanne went silent. Loriel sought desperately for something to say, but her throat was too tight and painful.

The trouble was that it _had_ been true, and now she’d ruined everything.

“And all that stuff about Cullen, huh,” Yvanne went on, calmer now, and bitterer. “You really did just want to piss me off. You know sometimes you are really…ugh!”

“It wasn’t just to piss you off,” Loriel protested—but it had been, and she knew it. Bold with fear, she seized Yvanne by the shoulders. “I care about you. I really, really care about you. You’re my best friend. I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry.”

“Then…” Something seemed to dawn on Yvanne. “Oh, Maker. Were you _jealous?”_

Loriel choked.

She needed to deny it, it was absolutely paramount that she deny it immediately, but somehow the words just wouldn’t come.

“You really were jealous,” Yvanne said, astonished.

“I—uh, I—”

“Well, that’s just stupid,” Yvanne said. “What have you got to be jealous about?”

Loriel vividly remembered the boy who’d accidentally set himself on fire during lessons last month. If she didn’t get out of here soon, she’d probably share his fate.

“Wait,” Yvanne said slowly. “You’re a virgin, aren’t you? You never mentioned--but, everyone in here is doing everyone, so I thought…”

“Quit making fun of me,” Loriel managed.

“I’m not! Sorry. But…” Yvanne’s gaze grew heated. “Well, if _that’s_ all that’s troubling you, we can take care of that. If you want.”

Combustion. Definitely combustion. Possibly a heart attack.

Yvanne moved closer. Loriel didn’t protest. 

Yvanne’s hands were on her hips, her body flush against hers, pinning her to the wall. Mage’s robes, though thick and woolen, but concealed nothing when every soft curve of Yvanne’s body was pressed against hers.

“Do you want to?” Yvanne said. She moved her thigh so that it pressed between Loriel’s legs. “You have to tell me, Lori.” Her thigh shifted slightly—almost certainly not on purpose—and just that tiny movement sent a bolt of white-hot sensation through her. Suddenly every fiber of her being was consumed with need, need and a desperate, desperate _want._

 _Yes,_ called everything in Loriel, her body, her soul, her mind— _yes, yes, yes!_

Yvanne’s hand moved from Loriel’s hip to cup her cheek, her thumb brushing the corner of her mouth. Loriel shuddered.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” Yvanne said. “It can just be sex.”

Loriel imagined it vividly, her eyes falling closed. Yvanne’s mouth on her own, and then on the rest of her—trailing down her neck, her collarbone, her shoulders. Yvanne slipping the robe off her shoulder, exposing her chest, marking it with her teeth, her mouth on one nipple, clever fingers worrying the other. Yvanne’s other hand—currently rubbing small circle’s into Loriel’s hip, promising so much more—trailing down her leg to hike up the skirt of her robe, fingernails leaving lines of fire on her inner thighs, teasing closer and closer until she was senseless with want—and then, only then, Yvanne kissing lower, down her stomach, her hipbone, her hot breath full of promise and temptation. Yvanne fucking her hard against the wall, so hard she’d forget who she was, where they were, forget everything in the world but Yvanne.

“It won’t have to change anything,” Yvanne said. Her voice edged on desperation, her shaky breath ghosting over Loriel’s face—so close, close enough that Loriel could kiss her now if she wanted. “It’s not like it’d be different, afterward. We’d still be friends. Best friends. Right?”

The illusion cracked and fell away.

Just sex.

Friends.

“No,” Loriel said. “No, we shouldn’t.”

Yvanne moved away so fast that her sudden absence was painful. “You’re right,” she said hurriedly. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—you’re not—I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Loriel was already regretting it. Her body was blistering with sensation, now with no outlet. What had possessed her? Why hadn’t she said yes?

Yvanne was pressed against the other wall now, as far from Loriel as she could possibly get, looking disgusted with herself—or maybe with Loriel. The moment had passed. It would probably never arise again.

“That was a bad idea,” Yvanne said.

Loriel slid down the wall until she was sitting with her knees to her chest.

“You’re my best friend,” Yvanne said miserably. “I’m sorry, for everything. I’m sorry I’m too much. I’m sorry I…I don’t want to lose you.”

“Don’t be. You’re perfect. I’m sorry, too. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yeah…” Yvanne took a deep breath, pushing her hair away from her face. “Yeah, good. Me neither.”

“Good.” Loriel hesitated. “This never happened.”

Yvanne nodded vigorously. “It never happened.”

And that was the end of that.

\--

“For the record,” Loriel said, “I think they were.”

Yvanne looked up from the mortar and pestle. “Were what?”

“In love.”

“Who?”

“Anders and Karl.”

Yvanne snorted. “Why are you bringing that up?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I’m just thinking about them. I wonder if he found him. I wonder if they escaped together.”

“Karl’s at the Gallows,” Yvanne pointed out. “So I doubt it. That place is supposed to be an unspeakable nightmare.”

Loriel flinched, and Yvanne regretted the harshness. “But maybe…”

“Yeah,” Yvanne said lowly. “Maybe.” She paused. “You usually don’t talk much about escape.”

Loriel shrugged, and gave a sardonic smile, as though escape was merely pleasant, wishful thinking. “I keep thinking about them, maybe out in the wilderness somewhere. Surely it happens sometimes.”

“Probably,” Yvanne agreed.

Yvanne probably should have been grateful that their friendship had resumed its normal course, but somehow she kept thinking of the stupid thing she’d said.

_It can just be sex._

It could, couldn’t it? Sex was nothing in the Circle. It was just something you did. Yvanne could share intimate details about the pubic hair of most of the mages her age. It never meant anything. It couldn’t, if you were smart.

Anders always said that. But look at him now, lost in the wilds chasing after his lover. They’d only even moved Karl because of their relationship, Yvanne knew that much. Glyph expertise. Sure.

Yvanne wondered if they’d send her away next. Or Loriel—no, probably not Loriel, not the protégé, the good mage. They’d take Yvanne, just like they took Karl, and send her to the Gallows. Or somewhere less barbaric, but no less hideous, when she faced the thought of being there alone.

It wouldn’t have just been sex. It would have been dangerous. Just because she wanted—just because she was lonely, and missing her dearest friend, and nearly consumed with anguish at the thought of losing her over some foolishness—it had been stupid.

And Loriel had said no.

If she hadn’t…well, Yvanne had had _ideas._ Long-entertained ideas kept well-buried, taken out to be examined only rarely, but never dismissed entirely.

_It doesn’t have to mean anything._

Idiotic.

But as the weeks went on and on and there was still no sign of Anders, Yvanne began to wonder. Maybe they really had escaped together. Maybe they’d found a little cottage in the woods. Maybe all of Anders’ talk of careless debauchery had become the greatest set of words ever to be eaten by their speaker.

Maybe they’d been wrong.

Cursed things could love too, couldn’t they?

The seed of something Yvanne would dare not call home took root in her heart, and slowly, slowly began to bloom. As much as she vied for Loriel’s attention, had always vied for it, now she seemed mostly to stare at her without speaking—the fall of her black hair around her shoulders, the roundness of her cheek, the few faint freckles around her blunt hooked nose, the heavy, serious eyebrows, frequently crumpled together in thought. Her familiarity had been made strange. Loriel had never cared about beauty, but somehow Yvanne could not look away.

She’d said no, Yvanne thought to herself at night.

But maybe…

It was only a week or two, with the _maybe_ hanging precariously at the edge of speech, before they dragged Anders back.

The rumors had it that he’d been trying to buy passage to Kirkwall, and had been apprehended at the docks.

Six attempts was simply _too_ excessive, Greagoir felt. An example need be made, he felt, and Irving did not protest too strongly.

Yvanne caught sight of Anders once more then, her old friend—nearly a stranger now—beaten and bloody and insensible as he was half-dragged, half-lead down the long and twisting halls, down to the dungeon where the cells were, the dank cramped cells that disobedient apprentices were often threatened with.

All of Yvanne’s maybes died swiftly and unspoken on her lips.

She should have let it lie. She should have returned to her work. She should have been like Loriel and saved herself pointless pain.

Well, she was a full mage now. They wouldn’t be making her Tranquil. That was Chantry law.

“Hey, you piece of shit,” she shrieked after Greagoir’s retreating back. “Did that make you feel like a big man, throwing boys in filthy dungeons? Did that make you feel good about your tiny pecker? I know all about that, you know! I got told all about it, by—”

She was kicked in the gut before she could finish, winding her, and then again in the side when she was curled on the floor. She managed to roll over and glare up at the offender. He was faceless, nothing but a pair of eyes glinting through a dark slit in a blocky helmet.

“That’s enough out of you.” Greagoir spoke somewhere out of her line of sight. “Ser Hoyden, escort this mage to her quarters.” His crisp booted steps retreated out of the area. Yvanne seethed, shivering on the floor.

“Aren’t you going to escort me to my quarters?”  she wheezed, full of venom. She couldn’t see the Templar’s face, but she imagined—she was _sure_ he was smiling.

This time, when he kicked her, it was in the head. Everything went black.

She woke in her own bed, feeling bruises everywhere she had skin. Worst of all in her tender side. Her headache was truly legendary. She groaned.

Warm hands brushed her forehead. A soft voice came from the darkness, enveloping her like a blanket. “Are you awake?”

“Lori,” she mumbled.

“I’m here.”

Yvanne opened her eyes to slits. Even that much light was too much—her head throbbed. She squeezed them shut again.

“Just try and relax,” Loriel said, barely above a whisper. “I’m doing my best, but I’m not a healer. I’m sorry. They won’t let Wynne come, and Anders is…” She trailed off. “I’m sorry.”

A cool cloth moved over her forehead, wiping away the crusted blood there. Everything still hurt, but at least Loriel’s hands were on her. Yvanne relaxed into the touch until she could almost ignore the pain.

Eventually Loriel sighed. “I thought you wouldn’t do this anymore, ‘Vanne.”

“Had it comin’,” Yvanne said, each word a knife in her eyes.

“Had what coming?” Loriel whispered shakily. “Some bit of verbal abuse? And now look at you…won’t even let you be healed.” She pressed her lips together tightly. “It’s _never_ worth it.”

“Maybe not t’ you,” Yvanne mumbled. She felt something hot and wet drop onto her shoulder. Loriel sniffed.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Loriel said miserably.

“I know.”

“I hate doing this every time. I hate seeing you like this.”

Yvanne stared at the wall. “Nobody asked you to. You can leave if you want.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Loriel finished cleaning and binding the wounds, sloppy with her shaking hands, and coaxed a scarlet potion down Yvanne’s throat. All the time she kept nervously glancing over her shoulder. Likely, she was breaking the rules to do this.

“I need to go back to the apprentice quarters,” she said quickly. “Before…”

“Go,” Yvanne said. “Don’t get in trouble.”

Loriel hesitated, then pressed a single dry kiss to Yvanne’s forehead, and fled.

\--

By the time Loriel was Harrowed, Anders had already been let out of solitary, and had already escaped again.

She had finished hers remarkably quickly, being returned to her bed before the dawn had even broken. And when she woke, still in her apprentice’s bed, she was a full-fledged mage. She was older than Yvanne had been for her Harrowing—she admitted to a twinge of jealousy at that—but still, it was over. They were both full mages.

Now they had only the rest of their lives.

Both Jowan and Yvanne were there that morning, to embrace and congratulate her, cry with her, help her move her things to the enchanters’ quarters. Yvanne had saved her a spot close to hers, this whole time. Loriel felt lighter than she had in years. She had passed. She had survived. She had _won._

She was doing better than she ever would have, if she’d remained in the alienage.

It had been years since she’d thought of her parents. But now she wondered, idly, how they were doing, and whether they missed her.

Probably not.

And it was on this roiling high point that Jowan introduced her to that mysterious Someone he’d never talked about before, and told her of his plan, and asked her to help.

Loriel’s blood ran as cold as her best entropic spells.

After that, her memories failed, becoming bright-white and overloud, letting only snippets in through her blinding panic.

\--

Snippets of a conversation.

“Of course you have to help him.”

Wringing her hands. “I don’t know.”

“You have to! I’d do _anything_ to help you, if you asked.”

Objecting. “That’s different.”

“Different how?” Yvanne’s fist on her full hip. “He’s your friend. He needs your help.”

“You’ve never even liked him.” Accusing. “Why do you care?”

“You really have to ask that?”

Tugging at her hair. “I don’t want to get in trouble. I don’t want them to…”

Yvanne softening. “You’re right. You should stay out of trouble.”

Relief, oh, the relief. “Really? You think so?”

“Yeah,” Yvanne nodding slowly. “You’ve got a reputation. You’ve got a life here.” Relief relief relief. “Me, though? I’m nothing. I’ll go with him.”

Panic panic fear panic _what?!_ “What?! Yvanne, no!”

Fear of being heard. Quieting down. “No, no, no, you can’t…”

Quailing with despair, hating herself for it. Yvanne gently tucking a piece of hair behind her long ear. “C’mon, Lori. We both know I don’t have a future in here. But Jowan and Lily? Might have a future out there.”

“But what if…” What if what if what if _what if--_

“I won’t get caught. I’m way too good for that.”

Liar! Liar liar liar! “Alright. I won’t tell. I’ll…I’ll come, too.”

“What? No, don’t come. You have a future to protect here. Loriel. Loriel, don’t.”

“You said it yourself. He’s _my_ friend. I’m coming, too.”

\--

Going to speak with Irving, no plan in her mind.

Irving’s usual indulgent smile, his pride, his happiness at her progress.

Worrying that her panic was transparent. That he would see right through her.

Realizing that there was nothing to see through. She could just tell the truth, resume life as it had always been. Comfortable. Her phylactery was gone now—there would be no easy escape anymore. It was too late for her. And why should she escape, when the Circle was the only thing containing her, protecting the world from her? That would have been irresponsible. Selfish.

Irving asking whether there was anything she wished to tell him.

Opening her mouth to speak—

\--it is _necessary,_ she knew it was _—_

Telling him no. No, there was nothing she wanted to tell him.

(The disappointment and hatred in Yvanne’s eyes would always have been too much.)

\--

The shattering of her life, in hardly any time at all.

Irving’s fury, his disappointment, the coldness in his voice, he would only ever hate her now, she had ruined everything, _everything,_ all that she had painstakingly built for herself here. Why had she thrown it all away? The blood on her skin, on her pristine, well-cared-for robes. Jowan gone—her dear friend, so distant lately—a blood mage, and gone.

They would send her to Aeonar.

Maker, they would send _Yvanne_ to Aeonar.

Yvanne! Her heart tearing. She had damned her. All those years keeping her out of trouble, out of danger, and all along her doom had been in Loriel. _Death-child._ It had always been her nature to bring misfortune. _Murk creature._

Amidst all this—calm.

This must be how Tranquil felt. Disconnected. Empty.

Staring at the ground, unable to understand, unable to process. The tongue-lashing of the teacher who had nurtured her, the vile hatred of the Templars who had always liked her, the betrayal of one of her oldest friends, the chaos, the blood, Yvanne on her knees beside her. Herself standing tall, unbent at her modest height, even as everything crumbled.

The Grey Warden speaking of _recruitment._

“No!” Hearing herself scream before she had even made the choice to open her mouth. “No, you can’t take me away from her!”

The Grey Warden’s heavy brows furrowing. “Who, child?”

Feeling something at last, feeling electric, _desperate._ Reaching for Yvanne, grasping her slick, bloody hand in her own. “You can’t take me!” Shrill, pathetic, ridiculous. “I won’t leave her! You’ll have to kill me!”

Yvanne, quietly: “Loriel, no. “ Her eyes downcast, rueful, but unsurprised. Had she _expected_ this?

The Warden again. “Normally the Grey Wardens recruit only one mage at a time.”

“Fuck you.” Tongue heavy and dry in her mouth. “You can’t have me.”

The Warden raising his chin, crossing his arms. “So. You will not leave without this Amell?”

Heart hammering, beating in her chest like a caged bird. Entire body trembling, her sweaty, bloody hand in Yvanne’s, gripping hard enough to hurt. “That’s right. You better take us both to Aeonar. I won’t go with you.”

Irving, chidingly. “Now, now…”

Greagoir, in a growl. “Good idea. This shan’t go—”

“Very well, then.” The Warden suppressing a chuckle. “Then by the Right of Conscription, I recruit both of you.”

Silence in the tower. Then, loudness. So much loudness, an unending storm of rain and thunder not much like speech at all. There was nothing but the loudness, and then there was nothing but Yvanne’s bloody arms around her.

“Don’t you know what this means?”

“We’re free.” Yvanne’s laughter, Yvanne’s tears. “We’re free, we’re free!”

Trembling in her embrace, hiding from the loudness, the sharp iron smell of blood, the suddenly painful light.

“We’re free, Lori!”

Not feeling free. Feeling more trapped than ever.

But with Yvanne, at least, always with Yvanne.

\--

Leaving the tower for the first time the same way she had arrived a decade and a half ago—in a boat, feeling sick and afraid, Yvanne by her side. The stormy clouds above, plopping needle-sharp raindrops on her skin.

Yvanne, sticking her whole arm into the water. Yvanne, leaning so far over the gunwhale that Loriel feared she’d fall in. Yvanne spotting a fish and actually shrieking with delight.

Yvanne laying back in the boat, closing her eyes, feeling the rain on her skin, cold as it was.

Making landfall. Yvanne throwing herself onto the wet grass, rolling in it until her robes were hopelessly stained. Tentatively stepping onto it herself, marveling at the feeling of grass under her fingers, the fresh sharp smell of it.

The Grey Warden calling for them to hurry. Perhaps an hour’s bewildered walking. The sun coming out, startling Loriel with its warmth. It was warmth she had not felt since she had been a child. Yvanne practically tearing off her outer clothes to feel as much of it on her skin as she could. Trying not to look at Yvanne in nothing but her smalls.

Moving on, eventually. Yvanne picking all the flowers, putting them in her hair, putting them in Loriel’s hair. Yvanne… _cavorting._

Yvanne laughing, laughing at everything, at birds and distant sounds and every shift of the wind. Yvanne laughing more in that one day than she had laughed nearly in their entire time together in the Tower.

Finally feeling something other than numb.

A smile at the corners of her mouth.

Yvanne’s eyes sparkling in the sunlight.

So, so much green. The smell of _outside,_ not quite so overwhelming now.

Yvanne grabbing her hand, tugging her onward.

Going…onward.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the tarot card for chapters 1-3, the two of swords, can be found [here.](http://wombuttress-art.tumblr.com/post/164689107543/tarot-card-for-part-one-of-void-and-light-in)

                **THE CAMP**

 

Yvanne seemed to boggle at every passing sight and sound, drinking in the presence of unfamiliar people like sweet wine.

Loriel mostly clung to her sleeve as she darted around.

“Have you ever seen anything so grand?” Yvanne declared.

 _No,_ Loriel thought, _And I wish I hadn’t._ She didn’t belong here. She was a gasping fish out of water, flopping helplessly outside her comfortable bowl.

At least Yvanne was enjoying herself, she thought disconsolately, watching her haggle hopelessly with a merchant for a breastplate whose worth she had no idea of. Loriel found herself smiling helplessly as Yvanne embroiled herself in an argument, became mortally offended, and then stalked away, dragging Loriel after her.

Yvanne found everything delightful, from the mud on the ground to the dogs running wild in the camp. Loriel wished Duncan hadn’t left them. He’d been familiar ground, and safe.

Yvanne was _supposed_ to be safe, too, but she was too busy hauling Loriel around into deals with prisoners and promises to kennelmasters, throwing herself—and by association, Loriel, too—headlong into every petty issue facing the war encampment.

“Would you give it a rest?” Loriel muttered to her. “You’ll get us in trouble.”

“Trouble?” Yvanne said lightly. “We’re free women now, slated to become Grey Wardens. What kind of trouble could we possibly get into?”

“Well—”

“Don’t answer that! You’ve enough catastrophe on you mind to bring it upon us.” Loriel flushed, which Yvanne didn’t seem to notice. “Come on,” she said eagerly. “Let’s go see what the king is talking about.”

 

 

**THE JOINING**

 

The men were dead on the ground. Duncan held the cup to Loriel next. The liquid there was dark, nearly black.

But still she reached for the poison.

Yvanne would have smacked it out of her hand if not for the other Warden restraining her by the upper arm. The ex-Templar, she thought acidly. He’d pay for this, but first— “Are you crazy? Didn’t you see Daveth?!” The young man’s corpse was cooling at her feet as they spoke. “Don’t do it!”

Loriel turned to her, the shadow of death in her eyes. “Didn’t you see Jory?” she said hollowly.

Yvanne wanted to scream. “That doesn’t mean—”

Loriel took the cup in her hands. She looked to Yvanne, miserable. “But it does. It always has.”

Before Yvanne could say anything further, anything to stop this madness, Loriel drank.

Like Daveth, her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she collapsed. The Junior Warden let Yvanne go, allowing her to drop by Loriel’s side. She was prone, perhaps dead. Yvanne tried to still her hands for long enough to discover which it was, but already Duncan was pressing the cup to her.

“Fuck you,” she told him. She brushed hair away from Loriel’s pale forehead. Was this how it would end? Death by blade or poison, with scarcely a month of freedom to her name?

Duncan did not react to this at all.

She had thought herself free. What an idiot she’d been, thinking that this path meant freedom. She’d been lead from the cage to the slaughterhouse.

“Will you take the Joining?” the Warden said.

“Fuck you,” she said again, more viciously, and snatched the Joining cup from him.

At least if Loriel were dead, Yvanne would swiftly join her.

Yvanne drank.

 

**THE UNIFORM**

 

Loriel liked the feeling of the Warden armor on her skin. It was snug and well-fitted, even to her non-standard frame, nothing like the loose and flowing robes she had worn nearly all her life. She stared at herself in a polished shield. She looked nearly formidable, if not for the unfortunate presence of her soft face and frizzy hair. No, for now, she only looked like a soft lump of a fresh-Harrowed mage poured into a mold of competence.

But she liked herself in blue. If only she could recognize the person reflected in the mirror as _her,_ and not some strange elf she’d never met before whose body she now inhabited.

Yvanne had not bothered to put on the armor requisitioned for her. She had put two slits in her Circle robes for ease of movement, chopped off the voluminous sleeves, and donned a leather jerkin over them, and otherwise refused the blues. Already the very mention of the Wardens seemed to sour her eye.

As much as she liked herself in the uniform of a Warden mage, Loriel had to admit she liked Yvanne’s  choice of clothing better. Every move she made exposed long tract of leg, and whoever had designed the leather breastplate had not been particularly practical minded.

Well, Loriel thought, there was no harm in looking.

 

**THE BATTLE**

 

Yvanne discovered that she loved battle from the first time she stabbed a darkspawn to death with her staff-turned-pike. Perhaps it was macabre, to take such delight in such a violent act, but her blood was singing with the joy of it.

Oh, she could be _good_ at this.

She wasn’t, yet. Years of slothful puttering about a confined tower had rendered her body weak and slow, but already it was becoming stronger, faster. And with Alistair—she still hated him—taking the brunt of the attacks with his heavy shield and armor, she was free to fill them all with lightning. At least he was good for that. The movement, the exertion, it felt like life in her bones. The stretch of her muscles, the pounding of her heart—life, this was life!

She didn’t even _need_ magic. She could live without it. She could fight without it—or she could learn to.

Loriel hung back. Her magic was of a subtler bent. She wove enchantments to weaken, to slow, to terrify, standing well back from the action—and she was a much stronger mage than Yvanne had ever been. Her mastery of her chosen field was such that a carefully woven spell would topple a whole battalion, bending them beneath the wait of death and horror. Yvanne’s first impulse was to remain close to her, protect her—but after all, if all the enemies were dead before they could get close to her, was that not protecting her, too?

Yvanne slew another monster, shoving her bladed staff in its gurgling throat, and laughed.

 

**THE LEADER**

 

The numbness that had enveloped Loriel from the morning after her Harrowing had persisted, invading her senses and diluting the world with fog. She wasn’t supposed to be here, she couldn’t stop thinking. Her mind and body had grown so accustomed to walls that the lack of them overwhelmed her now. The journey to Ostagar had been unpleasant. The camp itself, worse.

The battle, infinitely worse.

She hoped she would never have to do that again.

But of course, she was a Warden now. Battles were all that awaited her in this life, now.

Loriel searched for the grief in her heart at this thought, and banished it. She had accepted one poor lot in life as an elf, and another as a mage. She could accept another still as a Warden.

She’d had a duty as a mage. She had that duty still. Now, she would carry that duty out in service to the Wardens—another duty yet.

Yes, she could manage that. She would refocus. Reinvent herself.

She heard voices from outside the little hut, arguing. Yvanne’s, familiar, angry. Alistair’s, shaky, upset. Morrigan’s, cool, mocking.

None of them really sounded like they knew what they were doing.

She haphazardly pulled on her Warden blues. The situation was dire. Someone needed to take care of it.

For the first time since her Harrowing, the edges of reality sharpened again. This was her life. She would live it.

Loriel strode out into the swamp.

 

**THE DREAMS**

 

Yvanne awoke, rising from the murk, gasping like a drowning thing. Her surroundings, the tent, Loriel asleep nearby, became a wash as she scrambled to escape to the open air.

The cold southern Ferelden air was a shock, and that was good. It brought her back to reality, where there were no darkspawn teeth and darkspawn claws that she could do nothing to fight off. Where the Blight was merely in her blood, and not her dreaming mind.

She threw up, then breathed heavily, fistfuls of grass in her hands, for many long moments. When she heard quiet footsteps behind her, she had mostly calmed down.

“So you have them too?” Loriel’s voice was tired, but not panicked. Not terrified, the way Yvanne felt.

Yvanne nodded, not trusting her voice.

Loriel sat down beside her, staring into the empty fire pit. “I didn’t know we’d have…those.”

“Yeah,” Yvanne said hoarsely. “Yeah.”

Loriel didn’t say anything further, and after a while, Yvanne went on. “Real fair, that is,” she said harshly. “Signed up into this nightmare world of monsters in my head. You’d think they’d have mentioned that at the orientation meeting!”

When Loriel said nothing, Yvanne pressed. “This really doesn’t bother you at all?”

Loriel thought for a while. “No,” she said eventually.

Yvanne’s stomach turned. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Yvanne, don’t be angry. I think it’s because of my magic. The entropy…it’s not so different. I’m accustomed to it.”

“Well, I’m _not,”_ Yvanne snarled. “So excuse me for my pathetic weakness.”

“That wasn’t…I didn’t…” Loriel gave up, shaking her head. “I’m going back to sleep. We’ve a long journey ahead.”

She returned to the tent, not even casting a backward glance to check if Yvanne was following.

When she had settled more, Yvanne considered briefly returning to her—and then realized that nothing could have compelled her to sleep with walls around her now, even those of flimsy fabric, cold as it might have been.

 

**THE WITCH**

 

Loriel couldn’t for the life of her understand what Yvanne saw in the witch.

Morrigan was terrible. That was simply a matter of fact. She was cold, and cruel, and uncaring, and though Loriel would not go so far as to call her _evil,_ she was sure that such an accusation would neither offend nor disgust Morrigan at all.

But Yvanne and Morrigan seemed to have plenty to discuss, to laugh over, whether it was the foolishness of men, the finer points of offensive magic, or simply things like jewelry and face paint. Loriel had never taken an interest in any of those things, had never seen any reason to.

Why was she feeling such an urge now, she thought irritably? She had infinitely more important things to deal with, now that their little group had, for whatever reason, unanimously decided that she was to be their leader.

She went on ahead, leading the way. Maker, why did Yvanne have to have such dreadful taste in troublemaking friends?

If they _were_ just friends, she thought darkly.

 

**THE WARDEN**

 

Alistair seemed to cling to Loriel like an abandoned mabari pup, Yvanne thought sourly, watching them. Even compared to the actual mabari they had acquired.

She could understand grieving. But it wasn’t as though he was the only one who had ever lost someone. And even grief did not explain the slavish way he glanced to Loriel any time anything requiring a decision occurred. Was he not supposed to be the most senior Grey Warden? He asked Loriel everything, from which route to take, where to make camp, what to prepare for dinner.

Maker, did he so much as take a shit without asking Loriel’s opinion on it first?

Although, Yvanne thought, there was a certain satisfaction, in watching a former Templar dodge after a mage’s heels like a dog.

It was simply her opinion that this particular Templar should stop looking at her friend like _that._

But she supposed it was just as well, with Loriel. She’d gone after Cullen, of all people. Yvanne had concluded, at the time, that it had been a mere jealousy ploy—but what if she was wrong? She could certainly have been wrong. She found herself squinting at Alistair, trying to figure out whether he was attractive or not. Was Loriel interested? It would be just like her, panting after some Templar all to get under Yvanne’s skin.

Unless, of course—and this she knew perfectly well—that it had nothing to do with Yvanne at all.

And that was the worst possibility of all.

 

**THE DALISH**

 

Yvanne pointed. “We should go to the elves first. They’re the only treaty we have in the west. It’ll save time if we don’t have to cross the central plains twice.”

Loriel frowned. “But Alistair suggested we go to this Arl in Redcliffe first.”

Yvanne scowled. “And who cares what Alistair thinks? Who do you trust more, him or me?”

“Well…” Loriel bit her lip. Redcliffe was just across the lake from Kinloch. “I suppose we can go to the elves first.”.

Yvanne hesitated. “We don’t _have_ to,” she allowed. “We can go to Redcliffe, if…”

“No, you’re right.” Loriel rolled up the map decisively. “We’ll have to go there eventually, anyway.”

They would have a hundred little arguments like that. Yvanne would rarely win. She could allow her this.

Loriel didn’t know what she’d expected from the elves. Kinship. Familiarity. Some sense of belonging. What was most surprising was that she expected anything at all.

But she felt more alien than ever.

These people squatting in the woods with the strange markings on their faces, with their numerous gods and strange accented way of speaking…Maker, they seemed more strange to her than humans. She had, she realized, been amongst humans almost her entire life. Of course she was more comfortable with them.

They pitied her, she could tell. Who was she to them? A lost elf with no people, who carried stone walls around her like curtains.

Well, what right did they have, she thought irritably.

But if she had been born Dalish, she thought, looking at all the mages walking free within the camp, they never would have taken her to Kinloch. They would have fought and killed and died to keep her with them. She would have had a family of dozens. She would have had those markings too. She might have even been their First, regarded and beloved.

She sat around their fire, listening to their troubles and their stories, and ached to find a single drop of commonality.

But it was too late. The thread was severed. She would find no family here.

 

**THE ARCANE WARRIOR**

 

“You’re telling me a mysterious spirit spoke to you in your head and imparted ancient Dalish secrets of magic to you?”

Loriel shrugged. “Yes?”

“That’s--!” Yvanne could barely contain herself. “Why aren’t you more excited about that? This seems like a dream come true.”

“Mm,” Loriel intoned. She moved on through the ruins.

“My grandmother’s Rivaini,” Yvanne said. “I’d kill to have some ancient Rivaini spirit come into my head and tell me lost secrets from my culture. I don’t know anything about Rivaini magic.”

“I don’t think my magic is very Dalish,” Loriel said. “I think they find me creepy.”

Yvanne scowled, crossing her arms. “Their loss.”

“And anyway,” Loriel went on, her soft voice uncharacteristically harsh, “It’s not my style. This magic has nothing to do with me. I doubt I can use it and I have no attachment to it.”

Yvanne frowned, slowing for a moment. “Isn’t this your history? Your people?”

“No. It isn’t. They aren’t.” Loriel’s staff banged on the stone floor with every short sentence. “I don’t _have_ a history, or a people.”

That’s not true, Yvanne wanted to say, but a greater part of her was glad of it. “You have me.”

Loriel paused in her relentless forward motion. “You’re right,” she said slowly. “I do.” She turned, tilting her head. “Listen. Why don’t I just teach this technique to you? You’ll get more use out of it, I’m sure.”

Yvanne hesitated. “It’ll make me a better warrior?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know.” But years of confinement had not done Yvanne’s body any favors. She would never be the equal of any of the trained warriors in their group. She didn’t even have the strength to draw Leliana’s bow.

“You know what? Sure. Teach me the technique.”

 

**THE QUNARI**

 

Loriel liked Sten. He knew how to be quiet.

Yvanne hated him, for the things he said about magic and mages, but Loriel was strangely unbothered. He followed her, and helped her, and that was what was important.

She had sat by him during night watch on a few occasions, speaking little. It was hard to squeeze more than a grunt out of him, so she knew that when she did manage it, it was a great victory.

Sometimes they would argue. Sometimes she would even win. She knew she’d won when he grunted and looked off to the sky without further comment.

The Qunari had advanced measures of the night sky, Loriel discovered. Sten could at times be persuaded to tell her about it, if she convinced him that greater knowledge of navigation by the stars would make her a more effective Warden.

He spoke slowly, haltingly, and Loriel listened carefully, to relay all of it to Yvanne later. Yvanne would listen rapt and delighted, though not if she knew Loriel had learned it from Sten.

Yvanne loved the night sky. She refused to sleep inside the tent, even on the coldest nights, always choosing to put her bedroll outside and fall asleep beneath the stars. Looking up at it now, listening to the mystery of stars, Loriel could easily see the beauty.

But the beauty paled in comparison to the terror. It was all so vast, and she so small. The stars were but pinpricks of light within that endless void. Even their own little world was so vast and varied and unpredictable. It was too much.

Loriel preferred the tent. It was too cold at night, anyway.

 

**THE BARD**

 

Yvanne had worked hard to find way to hate the Chantry sister who had travelled with them. How could she not? Anybody spewing that Chantry drivel couldn’t possibly be a good person. Jowan had gotten involved with  a Chantry girl, and look how that had turned out for him. Yvanne remembered the disgust in that girl’s eyes. It was these evil Chantry people that put about that magic was a curse, that made Yvanne feel like _she_ was a curse—which she wasn’t, refused to be. She’d snarled at the Chantry woman for weeks, hoping to get a rise out of her, just waiting for her to say something vile and bigoted.

But it was simply no good. Leliana kind-hearted and amiable and hadn’t said a single untoward thing to her. She’d even helped Yvanne tailor her savaged Circle robes into something genuinely stylish.

And strangest of all, she thought magic was a beautiful gift of the Maker. Yvanne had never heard of anybody thinking such a thing.

Yvanne certainly didn’t. Magic had always been a thing that happened to her, a cancer she couldn’t escape—though a useful one, even a fun one. Yvanne didn’t believe any of that rot about sin and the Maker, but that magic’s presence in her body had ruined her life as much as Templars had.

Still, it was a nice thing to hear, even if Yvanne could not bring herself to believe it was true.

 

**THE ASSASSIN**

 

“I still can’t believe you let him live.”

“What was I going to do, Yvanne? Murder a man in cold blood, while he begs to live?”

“I don’t know if I’d call that begging. More like…suave weaseling.”

Loriel shrugged. “He wanted to live.”

“I’m sure all the other assassins and bandits we’ve been killing wanted to live, too.”

“They were attacking us.”

“So was _he.”_

“He stopped.”

“I just don’t trust him.”

“You don’t trust anybody.”

“That’s beside the point.” Yvanne would not let up. Yvanne _never_ let up, no matter what the subject was. “You’re too good-natured. It’s going to get you killed one day. And what if I’m not there to save you?”

“If you are planning on not being there to save me,” Loriel snapped, “Then don’t worry. I’m not so helpless as all that. I can take care of myself to _some_ extent.”

“That’s not—”

“What you meant? Then what _did_ you mean?”

Yvanne struggled to speak, and then stomped her foot. “I guess I don’t know _what_ I mean.”

She clearly intended on the argument being over, but Loriel couldn’t manage to stop. “You just can’t see any good in anything or anyone, can you?” she said. “You think everyone is out to get you. You can’t imagine anything but sludge in the world.”

“That’s not true,” Yvanne said.

“Oh, yes?”

“That’s right.” Yvanne planted herself, crossing her arms. “There’s you. I see good in you.”

Loriel scoffed. As though that were remotely true. “Well, the world is more than just me. You can’t just go around thinking everyone you meet is evil scum.”

“Yes, I can,” Yvanne said stubbornly. “Especially when you go around recruiting murderers and assassins and have a bloody Templar traipsing after you like a lost puppy.”

“You can’t do that, Yvanne,” Loriel said, gripping her staff tight enough to whiten her knuckles. “You have to see good in people. You just have to. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Yvanne snorted. “Whatever gets you through the day, I guess.” She crossed her arms, her lip curling. “But you know what I think, Loriel? I think you just let the assassin live because he’s pretty. You and your pretty blonde men. You have a _type._ ”

Loriel flushed, indignant. “That isn’t at all what—is this still about Cullen?”

“No,” Yvanne said, and stomped away to where Morrigan was camped. Probably to complain about her and what a trusting fool she was.

That had been a bad argument. One of the worst they’d had. Much worse than petty squabbles over which road to take, where to make camp, whether or not to make nice with the werewolves. Loriel hadn’t even realized she thought some of those things until she’d said them.

And to make it all about some man…

Zevran’s looks hadn’t even crossed her mind until Yvanne had mentioned them. Had _she_ been noticing him, then? Oh, probably. The Crow flirted like his life depended on it, and Yvanne was so obviously the most beautiful woman in camp.

It was a few days later that his flirting became so obvious that even Loriel noticed it. The real surprise was that it was aimed at _her,_ and that not only was it flirting, but an…offer.

Loriel regarded the other elf, trying to decide whether he really was good-looking or not. Yes, she supposed he was. Golden hair and dark skin, those striking tattoos, a strong body. These were all fine characteristics. And he certainly did not lack for charm and grace. Surely these things all added up to an attractive man.

And ultimately, it didn’t matter whether she found him attractive or not, did it? After all, Yvanne had run around with whomever her whims dictated, whether she liked them or not. And as a mage, there would be no conceivable way for the assassin to get the drop on her in an intimate moment. A single untoward touch on his part would whither the offending limb within seconds. And he was an elf, like her. There had been few enough elves at the tower, and Loriel had been close with none of them. Zevran was not even Dalish. He was a lost child like her, severed from anything that might have been called a people. They had that in common. Lost children of death, without a people, without love.

Still, as he stepped closer, eyes hooded, emboldened by her lack of objection, Loriel felt nothing. His body was close to hers, his hand hovering over her hip, a question in his raised eyebrow.

When it had been Yvanne, Loriel had been set aflame, driven mad with want and longing.

Now she could hardly identify _what_ she felt. Pity, perhaps. Curiosity, certainly. A certain sense of kinship, however paltry.

But lust? No.

She thought for a moment of telling him _yes,_ just so at least that curiosity could be satisfied, and so that Yvanne could see them go off to her tent—let her see how that felt. But something in her was determinedly disinterested.

She told him no.

Later she lay alone in her tent, frustrated and furious. What was wrong with her? Yvanne had offered, and she had said no—why? Because she was greedy, and wanted more than what she offered. And now she rejected a perfectly serviceable partner, simply because he was not Yvanne, who she would never have.

Maybe she just wanted to be miserable forever. That was the only explanation.

**REDCLIFFE**

 

“We need to talk.”

Loriel turned her head. Yvanne quirked a grin. “If the fearless leader is not too busy for me, of course.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Loriel scoffed, turning back. She was sitting on a hill, alone, as she often was now. Yvanne sat by her.

“We make Redcliffe tomorrow,” Loriel said, when Yvanne did not speak.

“We’re nearly halfway there,” she said.

“Hopefully there will be less werewolves,” she said.

Still Yvanne did not speak.

Loriel turned a frown on her. “You come here, saying we need to talk, and then you don’t talk?”

“I’m collecting my thoughts,” Yvanne said.

“You couldn’t have done that before coming up?”

Yvanne scowled, ripping up a handful of grass. “When did you get so damned difficult to talk to?”

Loriel shrugged mutely. Now it was her turn to remain stubbornly silent.

“Look,” Yvanne said finally, after the silence had deepened to painful, “What if we ran away?”

Loriel snorted. “Run away? From what, the Blight?”

“Yes,” Yvanne said, louder than she’d intended. “Why in the Void shouldn’t we?”

“We have a duty. That’s why.” Loriel’s gaze through her fall of dark hair was reproachful. “You know that’s why.”

“We most certainly do not.” Yvanne pounded the ground with her fist. “We didn’t choose this! We were taken from frying pan to fire, with no idea of how hot the fire. We could have died. We still might die.”

“We will die,” Loriel pointed out hollowly. “Within thirty years. If we’re lucky.”

“And why should we spend those years fighting monsters? Why should we have to? We never agreed to this. We were conscripted.”

“Because people will die if we don’t, I suppose.” Loriel’s voice was dispassionate, as though it was not of much concern to her either way. “People will die, and we ought to save them.”

“Why?” Yvanne demanded. “You’ve heard the things these people say, the way they talk about us. What do we owe them? Why should we reward their hatred with our blood?”

Loriel had no response to that. Eventually, she sighed. “Where would we even go?”

Yvanne’s pulse raced. She needed to press this opening if she was to convince her. “I don’t know. I hear Nevarra is nice. Or Rivain.” Yvanne’s eyes were bright, her voice breathless. “Listen, Alistair can take care of things here. He’s the most senior Warden, isn’t he? We could just go. Disappear. They’d never find us. They’d be too busy to even look. The Templars would never have us, and the Wardens neither. We’d only have thirty years, but at least we could _have_ them.”

But Loriel was shaking her head. “Alistair? You can’t be serious.”

Yvanne grit her teeth. “Loriel. _Please._ Don’t be like this. _”_

Loriel gave a now-rare smile, but it was a bitter one. “I am what I am.”

Yvanne looked her in the face for a long moment. The sound of crickets was in the air. Fireflies flickered around them.

“I suppose you are,” she said finally, and departed.

 

                **THE STARS**

 

Sten had told her of a Qunari belief regarding stars.

He objected to calling it a mere belief. As far as he was concerned, this was a fact of Qunari knowledge. Loriel couldn’t imagine knowing such things for certain, but Sten was adamant on that front.

Qunari believed that some stars were not singular stars at all, but in fact, two stars, locked close in orbit together.

They knew this, Sten explained, for their most powerful instruments had resolved images of the closest ones. Several appeared to be twinned.

Loriel had thought about that a lot.

The night before they made Redcliffe, Loriel looked up at the sky, and wondered how many of the stars she saw were really a twinned pair, locked together. She imagined them as they must be up close, huge and bright and powerful, revolving around each other in a heavenly dance, their fates permanently entwined. Unable to escape one another’s pull, but neither able to meet.

It was a terrible thought. A lonely thought.

But, she thought, returning to her tent, wondering if Yvanne would still be there in the morning, not so lonely as the notion of a universe of singular stars, without even a companion to revolve with. Not quite so lonely as that.


	5. Chapter 5

Loriel’s eyes were red in the morning, which was enough to make Yvanne feel like pond scum. Whether she had been crying or simply not sleeping, it didn’t matter. Even the fact that Yvanne hadn’t seriously considered leaving didn’t manner.

She was a bad person, and that was just that. A bad person who had allowed her dearest friend to believe for an entire night that she might leave her to face the darkness alone.

Loriel’s watery smile at the sight of her that morning made matters worse.

“Let’s just go,” Yvanne mumbled.

They reached Redcliffe that very morning.

\--

Heading into the dungeons, Loriel expected a lot of things. Demons. Ghouls. Walking corpses. Nightmares she had never before encountered. Assorted other horrors.

She had certainly not expected her childhood friend.

“Jowan?”

“Loriel?”

“ _Jowan_?”

“Yvanne?”

There was simply nothing else to do but sit down, the three of them together, and catch up through the iron bars separating them.

After Jowan was through with his tale, looking so cowed and miserable, Loriel could only reach through the bars and squeeze his hand.

“No, don’t pity me,” he said, squeezing back weakly. “It’s all my fault. I wrought this. This is what I deserve.”

Loriel gave a brittle smile, but could not find it in herself to argue.

“What?” Yvanne said, angry. “Don’t say that. None of what happened was your fault!”

But it was, Loriel knew better than to say.

“You were backed into a corner,” Yvanne insisted, “They baited you with those books. They _wanted_ you to fail! What were you supposed to do, lie down and let them destroy you?”

Jowan was shaking his head. “I appreciate your faith,” he said, “But I’ve no illusions. I made bad choices, and I’ve ended up in a bad place. No two ways about that.”

“But—” Yvanne shook her head, standing and stomping several feet away, though she remained hovering nearby. “Argh, fine! Be that way! See if I care!”

Jowan laughed awkwardly, and a piece of Loriel’s heart chipped away. The distance, the lies, the betrayal, none of it meant anything. Her friend was in a prison cell. He’d obviously been tortured. And he still laughed like the awkward six-year-old she’d known. “And you two. Grey Wardens, eh?”

“That’s right,” Loriel said, self-consciously straightening her collar. She was sure the smile on her face was shadowed and unconvincing. “You missed our recruitment by minutes.”

“That’s good, then,” he said. “That you got out the proper way. That you didn’t have to…do what I did.”

Yvanne muttered something under her breath that Loriel didn’t catch.

“So,” Jowan said. “Have you two…?”

“Have us two what?” Loriel said blankly, though with growing horror. Was he really asking after romantic intrigue from the inside of a dungeon?

“Well, you know,” he said. “The two of you, together. Everyone knew that it would always…no?”

Loriel faltered, desperately scrambling for her bearings in what was probably the most awkward exchange she had ever experienced. “I…ah….that is to say—”

“It’s not like that,” Yvanne interrupted from the back of the room—harsher than Loriel thought she deserved. “And it was never like that. So just don’t, okay?” Was that really how it was? Was the thought so awful? Maybe it was.

“Sorry,” Jowan said quickly.

Loriel took a long breath, squeezing his hand again. “I’m going to do my best to figure this out,” she said. “Stay out of trouble in there, alright?”

\--

“Just let Jowan do it,” Yvanne urged.

Loriel stared at her like she’d grown a second head.

“Let’s not go back there,” Yvanne said, her voice a pitch higher than usual. “We don’t really need to, do we? Jowan says he can help. Let him. He’s your friend, isn’t he?”

“He is,” Loriel said, “But—”

“But what? Loriel, please. Don’t take us back there. Not like this.” Pathetic, Yvanne thought. She was pathetic. Only an absolute worm like herself would be reduced to this at the thought of return to Kinloch.

“There are lives at stake,” Loriel said.

There it was. Selfless, dutiful Loriel. She would never have put her own comfort ahead of anyone else’s, and certainly not Yvanne’s. That was just how she was—selfless, luminous, Loriel.

And yet she would still protest. “No,” Yvanne said, shaking her head.

“We’re going to have to go back there anyway,” Loriel argued. “The treaties…”

“Fuck the treaties! We need to beat back the darkspawn, right? We can do that without any of the bloody Kinloch mages. There’s three of us here, already, isn’t that enough?”

Loriel was already shaking her head. “No,” she said. “It’s not. Yvanne, we have to go back and get the lyrium. We’d have to do that eventually, anyway.”

_Then you can go yourself! I won’t!_

If only...

“We will do this the right way,” Loriel said adamantly. “It will be fine. We’re free now.”

“Are we?” Yvanne said, bitterness on her tongue.

“We are,” Loriel said, voice hard. “As free as anybody ever is. We will go back, and nothing will go wrong. We’ll get the lyrium, and the troops, and move on. And it’s going to be _fine.”_

\--

Her home loomed large on the glass mirror of the placid lake. It looked so blue from out here, Loriel thought. It had never looked so blue from inside.

And Kinloch—was it really so small? A tiny needle in a lake—not even an ocean, as it had seemed, growing up. Not a universe of stone and paper, but only a building. A tall, lonely building. Her home.

It was her home, wasn’t it? She could hardly recall any other one. Her parents’ little hovel, a dirty grey place of hunger and fear and harsh words. At least in the tower they had been fed. At least in the tower there’d been Yvanne.

Yvanne had sulked silently the entire road to the docks, snapping and snarling at anyone who dared speak to her. Truly, why was she still here, Loriel thought? Surely not for her sake. What was one such as her compared to the vastness of the world that Yvanne had wanted so badly?

She’d only even ever been her friend from lack of choice. Loriel could see that now, from the way she spoke with Morrigan and Leliana. And from the way Leliana spoke with Yvanne (her hair, really? Could she be trying any harder?), it was only a matter of time until…

Loriel didn’t even want to think about it.

Perhaps Yvanne only stuck around out of habit.

Oh, well, Loriel thought, despair at the back of her throat. Life was like that. One was born into poverty, one was taken to the Circle. One was befriended by Yvanne Amell, and one was left by her. One had to play with the cards one was dealt. Loriel understood that, even if Yvanne didn’t. And who knew? Maybe Yvanne really didn’t have to play with the cards she was given. Maybe people like Yvanne could wrest new cards from life’s grip.

She recognized the Templar guarding the docks. Carroll. He was relatively easy to handle. Fine, she thought. It was going to be fine. In the end, everything was—one way or another.

\--

Yvanne didn’t get it. How Loriel could be so calm. Her face didn’t so much as twitch when she heard the news.

“I say let them die,” Morrigan was saying, Morrigan who was supposed to be her friend. Morrigan who’d said she was so much more than the others. Yvanne felt a perverse joy in knowing she’d been right not to trust her.

“We need the troops,” Loriel said hollowly. Troops, Yvanne thought. It was all about the troops. Who _was_ this person?

It wasn’t until she accidentally gave Alistair a slight shock that she realized electricity was crackling along her skin unbidden. She grit her teeth and suppressed it, though she still felt it in her teeth.

How many times had she dreamed of this? Abominations running wild through the tower, dead Templars at her feet. It was like walking through one of her fantasies. If she put herself away, she could almost enjoy it, could almost imagine it wasn’t real.

When Wynne reached out to comfort her, the snarl she made sounded inhuman to her own ears.

Blood and destruction, she’d always wanted it, hadn’t she? Well, she had it! It was almost as though she’d wished it into being. Perhaps she had, she thought manically. Perhaps this was _her_ fault. She was the one who wanted to help Jowan, wasn’t she? The one who destabilized the whole tower, and allowed the senior enchanter to make his move?

Yvanne marveled at her handiwork, and laughed unsteadily. This was great, she thought, charging a destructive enchantment. This was _perfect._ Morrigan had been right all along.

They deserved this.

\--

Loriel walked slowly through the carnage, through the remnants of her only home. It was all distended flesh and poisoned blood now.

This was not quite _fine,_ but she felt calm. Removed.

“I still say we should have left them,” Morrigan said, somewhere distantly behind her. “They allow themselves to be corralled, and now their masters have chosen death for them. Why are we bothering?”

“Right?” she heard Yvanne scoff. “Couldn’t have said it better myself. To the Void with this place.”

A distant part of Loriel screamed to hear that, but it was a very distant part indeed. The greater part of her walked onwards and upwards, her entropic influence felling the enemies before her.

Do not think of them as kin, she thought.

Do not think of them as friends.

They are not either. They are lost things. They are meat.

Meat, Loriel thought, hardly cognizant of Yvanne’s bitter laughter, as she slew another abomination with an explosive glyph. That one had had just enough of its original face left for Loriel to recognize it as a girl to whom she had once taught glyph-craft.

Meat.

She recognized one of the dead Templars, who had been torn in half, his helmet rent asunder so that his face was exposed. He’d been an orphan given to the order, like Alistair. He hadn’t wanted to be here.

In the next room they were ambushed by another abomination, this one too far gone to recognize, to even identify as something that had once been human. Low on mana, despite the enchantment that leeched it off the surrounding corpses, Loriel only watched it, empty, as Yvanne struck the killing blow with a bolt of lightning. She laughed as she did it, extolling in the thrill of battle, just as she did against the darkspawn.

The abomination’s corpse really didn’t look like it had ever been a person.

Meat, Loriel thought, and moved on.


	6. Chapter 6

Yvanne awoke in her own bed, bleary and confused. The goosefeather pillow was soft, the linen sheets fragrant. All was well.

Wasn’t it?

Yes, she thought, reassuring herself. It was. She had been dreaming of something terrible, but that had been the dream. This was real. The thatch above her head, the dried herbs and bulbs of garlic hanging in the window, the trappings of married life scattered all around her--it was the realest thing she'd ever experienced.

Yvanne lay in bed a while longer, luxuriating in the morning sun before getting up. Loriel was already up and in the kitchen, humming a little tune as she fried potatoes for breakfast. She was round and full of life, her face moonlike and framed with feathery black hair. Yvanne’s heart clenched with love to see her.

She turned to face her, breaking into a sunny smile. “Good morning, love,” she said, pulling her down for a kiss.

“Good morning,” Yvanne mumbled into her mouth, stroking small circles into her shoulder blades as she kissed her back. This morning’s kiss felt as bright and electrifying as the very first one _._

Loriel smiled as she pulled away. “You slept late today,” she said. “The children are already out. Could you go mind them while I finish up breakfast? I know it’s safe here, but you know how I worry.”

“I know, I know,” Yvanne said. “I’ll go.”

“Thank you.” Loriel stroked the side of her face before returning to the frying pan. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Yvanne said, before heading out of their shared home to where their two fine children played in the fields. They shrieked with laughter when they saw her, tackling her to the ground, and they had a fine time until Loriel called them in for a late breakfast.

Yvanne hitched their youngest onto her hip, her hand on the shoulder of their eldest as she lead them both inside. It had been many years since they had worried about being found by Templars, but old habits died hard.

But, after all, they had escaped. For good this time. They would never be troubled by the likes of them again. Yvanne put them out of her mind.

They ate their breakfast leisurely, sharing jokes and dreams and silly stories. There was no need to rush, and the sun was nearly at its zenith by the time they were done with the dishes.

The children ran out to play again, chasing each other with sticks and pretend swords. “The garden, then?” Loriel suggested, tying her hair back.

“The garden,” Yvanne agreed.

They worked the garden, the hours slipping away. Yvanne was wiping sweat away from her forehead and wondering about lunch in hardly any time at all.

“What do you think?” she said. “Are the tomatoes ripe enough to use today?”

“Some of them, I think,” Loriel agreed, examining them. “We can pick the ripest ones and use them today.”

Lunch passed without incident, except for that their youngest tracked mud into the house and required a brief reminder as to keeping clean. After lunch, with the summer air so heavy, it was decided that magic lessons for today could be foregone for the sake of a brief nap.

“Isn’t this nice?” Loriel sighed into Yvanne’s neck, her fingers dragging lightly over Yvanne’s side, her hip, her thigh, making her shiver pleasantly. She covered Loriel’s hand with hers, twining their fingers together. She wouldn’t have traded this for the world. Later, when the children were asleep in the other room, they would have to continue that particular line of discussion. “Can you believe that such as us have all of this?”

“Mm, yes,” Yvanne mumbled into her hair.

“We should stay forever like this,” Loriel said.

“Yes,” Yvanne repeated, drawing her closer.

“Just sleep like this,” Loriel said, her lips soft and warm, “For all eternity.”

“Yes…”

Yvanne had nearly drifted off when something began to niggle at the back of her mind.

“Lori,” she whispered, “Can you remind me why we don’t worry about Templars anymore? I can’t quite…remember…”

Loriel laughed musically. “My love, surely you recall. It wasn't _that_ long ago.”

Yvanne thought she did, but suddenly she wasn’t sure. “You’re right, you’re right,” she said quickly. “I’m being stupid. But I can’t quite seem to…”

“You don’t need to remember,” Loriel said, kissing her. “You just need to rest.”

Yvanne blinked, slowly, so slowly. “But I’m not tired.”

“Of course you are. We both should rest. Sleep, my love.”

“Wait. No.”  Yvanne struggled up through the fog. Outside the window was not a starry sky, but something…else. “This isn’t right. This would never happen to us. This was never for the likes of us.”

“What couldn’t be right about this?” Loriel said. “This is all we ever wanted. This is as right as we are ever getting.”

 _Shut up,_ a part of Yvanne said. _She’s right._ _Don’t ruin this. Lie back. Accept it._

But the rest of Yvanne, the greater part of her, the one that was nothing but hissing spit and spines, rose up all at once, and cried out--

“No!” Yvanne yelled, springing out of the bed that was not a bed, the cottage dissolving around her like tisuse.

Loriel began to change, horns sprouting from her hair, her teeth lengthening to fangs, her blunt nails to claws. A blade appeared in Yvanne’s hand, the one her hand remembered wielding—she lunged, thrusting—

The dream shattered.

\--

By the time Yvanne found Loriel in the Fade, she’d already rescued Morrigan and Wynne, shattering their illusions with impatience—what did she care for their squabbles with minor demons when Loriel was still missing?

She still remembered the sound Loriel—no, not her, it hadn’t been her, it had been a demon—had made when Yvanne had slain her. Yvanne would know all her life what that had felt like, sounded like. She’d never be able to forget.

She’d finally found the scrap of Fade she knew to be Loriel’s dream, if only for the feel of it, the familiarity of a dreamscape of one she knew so well. And there Loriel was—alive, apparently unharmed. Yvanne ran, the Fade shifting luridly under her feet.

Loriel didn’t seem to notice her. It was then that Yvanne saw the demon. It was draped over Loriel’s seated figure, arms wrapped around her shoulders, whispering in her ear.

It looked exactly like Yvanne.

“Lori?” she said, drawing up short.

Loriel did not react.

The demon’s eyes flickered up, then returned attention to Loriel. “It is nothing,” it hissed in her ear. “Relax. Lie back.”

“Mm,” Loriel intoned, barely moving. She was sprawled languorously on a jutting stump of fade-stuff, looking limp and somehow…debauched. Her eyes were half-shut, a ghost of a smile on her lips. Yvanne wondered what she was seeing. Wynne and Morrigan’s dreams had looked like empty scraps of raw Fade to her, but her own dream had been so vivid, so real. She could have stayed in it forever, had the unlikelihood of that future not begun to sit wrong in her heart.

“Loriel,” Yvanne said, her voice high and unsteady. “That’s not me, that’s a demon. _I’m_ me. Hello? Can you hear me?”

Loriel’s black eyes slowly focused on Yvanne. A crease appeared in her forehead. “Hm?”

“That’s right,” Yvanne said. “Just focus on me. We’ll get you out of here. Listen to my voice.”

“No, don’t do that,” her demonic twin said lazily. “Listen to me, instead. Aren’t you comfortable? Can I make you more comfortable?” The demon’s hand drifted from Loriel’s shoulder to cup one of her breasts. Loriel sighed. “That’s right,” the demon purred, scraping a fingernail down her neck. “Isn’t this nice?”

“Yes,” Loriel breathed, her eyes shutting the rest of the way.

Yvanne felt set afire. How dare it—how _dare—_ touching her like that, with Yvanne’s hands, when—“Argh!” It would be uncomfortable at best to kill something wearing her own shape, but she would do it without a second thought. She lifted the blade and began her approach.

In a flash, Loriel was up, her staff appearing in her hand, blocking Yvanne’s blade. “Stay away from her,” Loriel hissed.

Her face was furious, contorted. Yvanne stopped short, not daring to even breathe.

“No, listen,” she said. “It’s me. It’s Yvanne.”

Loriel’s face clouded over. She paused. “But…”

Yvanne nodded vigorously. “That’s a demon _. I’m_ real. “

Loriel glanced back at the demon. The demon adopted a wounded expression, holding its arms the way Yvanne often did when she was hurt. “Demon?” it said softly. “You would call me that? I thought you were different, Loriel. I thought you weren’t like the rest of them. I thought you were good.”

“I am,” Loriel said immediately. “I am good. Not like the rest.”

Yvanne’s whole being buzzed with a scream. “Think back on the last time you saw me!”

Loriel frowned. “We were…the tower….but no, that can’t be right. We left the tower.” She blinked, remembering. “Jowan. He ran. And then we left too.”

“Yes,” Yvanne said. “But then we came back. You wanted to go back. Because of duty, or something. Remember?”

Loriel rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Yes…” She breathed. “We did come back. For the treaty. And there were demons. Abominations. Everyone was dead…”

Yvanne continued to nod. “Yes, yes.”

“They were all dead.” Loriel’s eyes were far away. “I wished I was dead, too. My home was gone. Everyone I’d known, everyone I’d grown up with, dead and mutilated.” Loriel looked up at her. “And you were laughing.”

Yvanne froze. “What? No. No, I’d never laugh at that.”

“But you would,” the demon mocked. “I should know. I’m you. Or rather, I’m her memory of you—but better. Less beastly. Less callous. Less cruel.”

Yvanne flinched. “No. I’m not…I didn’t mean…”

“You did,” Loriel said slowly.

Yvanne suppressed a heaving sob. For a split second, she wished she was back in her own impossible dream.

Loriel was looking at her, expressionless.

“That’s right,” the demon said. “Kill her. She’s the demon. Of course she is. Who but a demon would behave like that? Who but a demon would hurt you like that? _I_ would never hurt you. I will never leave you. I’m—”

Before it could finish, Loriel had buried her bladed staff in its chest, disintegrating it to dust faster than Yvanne could even react.

Yvanne sobbed in relief. “Andraste’s fucking _tits_ ,” she gasped, “I thought you were going to kill me.” And kill her she would have. Yvanne would never have managed to raise blade to Loriel a second time. She’d sooner have died. “I thought it had you fooled.”

Loriel looked embarrassed. “It did, for a while. I was never much good with spirits. Not the way you are.”

“Oh, shut up,” Yvanne said, finally throwing her arms around her. “You’re wonderful. What are you even talking about?”

Loriel’s returning hug was delayed, but powerful. The Fade was crumbling around them, but still they clung.

“How did you know?” Yvanne said. “What broke the illusion?”

Loriel was already fading. A crease appeared in her forehead. “It said it would never hurt me.”

"What do you mean?" Yvanne froze, then pulled back. "Are you saying I hurt you?”

Loriel smiled faintly. “Of course you do.” She reached out to cup Yvanne’s cheek, though her hand was little more than a scrap now. “You hurt me all the time, just as I hurt you. It is the penalty we pay, for love. And I…”

But the rest of her words were lost, and she was gone.

\--

Irving was alive, and proud of her. For some grotesque reason, that still seemed to matter. His eyes crinkled fondly as he thanked her for his life, leaning heavily on Loriel as they made their way down the excess of stairs.

She had yet to speak to Yvanne. Or even look at her.

The thing she’d dreamed…her cheeks flamed to think of it.

More important than Irving’s pride was his word to Greagoir that the Circle was safe now, that an annulment was not necessary. Loriel felt the tension inside her ease.

Until Cullen began to speak. If it could be called speaking. Spewing was more like it.

She wasn’t even cognizant of what he was saying. She was watching his face, the spittle flying from his mouth, the unfocused rage in his eyes.

“They might be blood mages,” he was hissing. “You can’t trust any of them. Even now, demons may be dormant inside them.”

If she'd heard that a week ago, she would have ignored it. Plenty of Templars said such things. They could be controlled, pacified, reassured. She would have been unmoved.

But after the things he'd said about Yvanne—that crawling, sliming desire—he’d dared call her a _thing…_

Cullen was still ranting, even as the Knight-Commander dismissed him.

She had never hated anyone as brightly as she hated Cullen. It bubbled and boiled in her like a runaway cauldron. It filled her more than nearly anything else ever had.

She could kill him. She could stop his heart in his chest with a burst of her life-draining magic. How dare he live when so many good mages were dead? How dare he live and bay for the blood of the survivors? How _dare_ he?

But no. She had no spells that killed instantly. She’d be smote and silenced before she could finish the job.

All the while she held herself still and quiet, her shoulders down, her body the picture of relaxation and calm. No threat could be detected in her. The placid smile did not waver from her face.

When the business was concluded and Loriel was finally given leave, her objective accomplished and a new ally by her side, Irving paused again to congratulate her.

“Thank you, child,” he said, squeezing her shoulders and giving a fond smile. “You have always been the best of us. I wish you joy.”

Loriel continued to smile.

\--

Yvanne crouched by the shore, stormy gaze locked firmly on the opposing bank. She’d be standing on it soon.

“It’s over,” Loriel said, coming up behind her. “The lyrium and the troops are secured. We can go now.”

Yvanne was up in a flash. “Finally.”

Wynne was still speaking with one of her apprentices, near the entrance. Yvanne had been pointedly ignoring her since she’d joined the party, as much satisfaction as she got from being the one to have pulled her out of her Fade nightmare. Alistair and Morrigan were arguing over the boat that would take them back to shore.

It was just the two of them, for however briefly.

 _I didn’t mean to laugh._ “Old Cully-Wully didn’t give you any trouble in there, did he?”

Loriel’s expression didn’t change. “Not much, no.”

 _I don’t know why I did. I’m sorry._ “Sorry for not sticking around. My skin was going to crawl right off me if I had those walls around me for even a second longer.”

A brief, wan smile. “Don’t worry. I understand.”

 _I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was just…_ “Well, we’d better go. Got a demon to extract, a crusty old arl to awaken. Busy, busy wardens, we are.”

“Right. So we are.” Loriel rubbed her thumb thoughtfully along her staff. “Yvanne, if I could only ask a favor…I know you’re the better of the two of us with the Fade, but I’d like to perform the ritual to free Connor myself.”

“Of course, but…why?”

Loriel shifted her staff from hand to hand. “I’m ashamed,” she admitted eventually. “That I was gulled so easily. I might never have broken out of its spell, if not for you.”

 _What were you dreaming of?_ “I’m sure you would have.”

Loriel shook her head. “I can’t know. Not until I face a demon in its demesne again myself. I need to prove to myself that I can.”

Yvanne shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ve had enough Fade to last a lifetime.”

They walked side by side along the shore, back to the boat. Yvanne remembered the childhood afternoons by this shore. She’d loved to swim, even under rustbucket supervision. Loriel would have preferred to sit and read, if the exercise hadn’t been compulsory.

_What were you going to say, Loriel? What did you mean to say? ‘And I,’ what?_

Yvanne bit her lip. She’d always been brave. She was always doing things that frightened her. She could do this. _Come on. Just say it. Open your mouth and say it_ , _before we arrive at the boat. Just do it._

She tried to keep her deep breath quiet, her voice steady. “So…about what happened in the Fade…”

Loriel tilted her head only slightly to look at her. “It never happened?” she said wryly.

All of Yvanne’s callow courage fled from her. “It never happened,” she agreed.


	7. Chapter 7

“You can’t do that!” Yvanne burst out. “We saved your damn life, you piece of ancient crusted shit!”

The wave of preemptive regret rolled over her, knowing that punishment would follow, until she remembered that she was a Grey Warden now, and Grey Wardens were not beaten for speaking.

The Arl seemed unmoved by the invective. “I cannot allow a maleficar to go free,” he said.

“Maleficar? Who gives a shit! It wasn’t his fault!”

“Regardless.”

Yvanne spat at the Arl’s feet. They had gone so far out of their way for this heartless wretch, frozen their assholes off up a mountain, fought cultists and shades and _dragons—_ for the Maker’s sake, Loriel’d had to duel Sten for dominance halfway up! And had beaten him with two well-chosen spells, but that was not the point.

“We should have let you die,” she hissed.

“Yvanne,” Loriel said quietly. “Enough.”

“No!” Yvanne slammed her staff into the ground, sending sparks into the air. She shouldn’t have even been the one to be saying this. Jowan was _Loriel’s_ friend, not hers. She hadn’t even liked him. And yet she quivered with rage. “This is not acceptable! I’ll—I’ll recruit him myself."

She drew herself up, gripping her ivory staff. "I invoke the Rite of Conscription!”

Alistair looked uncomfortable. “Can we do that?”

“No,” Loriel replied hollowly. “We can’t."

"Loriel--what? You're kidding, right? No way--"

Loriel cut her off. "We have neither the knowledge nor the resources to administer the Joining.”

Yvanne ground her teeth. “So we can do that later. I won’t let this stand. The Grey Wardens will need people badly when this is all over. There’s, what, three of us? In all of Ferelden?”

“Yvanne,” Loriel said again, more insistently. Yvanne ignored her.

“You can’t do this,” Yvanne seethed. She would—she would—

Usually at this point, Yvanne would say something exceedingly rude and exceedingly clever. And she would feel satisfied with herself, and then be punished, sometimes very badly. And Loriel would sniffle while patching her up, and beg her never to do that again, and Yvanne would apologize profusely for upsetting her and agree, and a few months later she would do it again.

But that had been in the Circle, the Circle which practically didn’t exist anymore. And she had already been rude, but nobody had punished her. Her repertoire was exhausted. What in the void _could_ she do now?

Before she could think of anything, the Arl sighed. “Very well,” he relented. “He was your friend. I understand--” Yvanne’s shoulders began to droop with surprise and relief, “—so I will grant him the mercy of a swift and painless execution.”

Yvanne saw Loriel’s eyes widen slightly.

“ _What?!”_ Do something, she screamed in her own head. Do something! Do _anything! “_ You—you evil—”

The Arl turned, disinterested. “We have more important things to consider for now.”

Just do something. _Do_ something. You’re a free woman—you can do what you want. Just—do—something--anything!

Yvanne did nothing.

“You must continue to gather your armies, and we must move quickly against Loghain. We will travel to my estate in Denerim, where we will begin…”

The Arl didn’t finish his sentence. His eyes lost their focus, his limbs slackening like a marionette with cut strings.

The whole room, Yvanne realized, was still and silent. The Arl’s brother and wife stood like glass-eyed statues. She turned to Alistair, sulking in the corner, unwilling to join the discussion of his imminent ascendance. He was blank and empty, too.

“Perhaps, Arl Eamon,” Loriel’s smooth voice called out from behind her, “you should pardon the maleficar of all crimes, instead.”

“Loriel, he won’t just agree—” Yvanne said, mouth moving faster than her mind.

“Yes,” the Arl said vaguely, “Perhaps you’re right. I shall draft and sign the papers immediately.”

“Tell the guards at once,” said Loriel. “A free man ought not be locked up any longer than necessary.”

“Yes, of course.” The Arl walked dreamlike to the door. His brother and wife remained motionless. They looked like victims of a Sloth demon.

Loriel’s eyes met Yvanne’s in brief apology. Her sleeve was pushed to her elbow, her arm bleeding from the neat incision she’d made with her dagger.

Yvanne stared at the cut, at the blood dripping down Loriel’s arm, at the apologetic angle of her eyebrows. It was clear what had happened, so obvious—there could be only one possible explanation.

But it didn’t make any sense. It had no place in Yvanne’s worldview. So she stared and stared and stared and didn’t understand.

\--

Loriel waited tensely, concentrated on maintaining a new and unfamiliar spell, looking at nothing, particularly not at Yvanne. Sometimes her eyes flicked to her thralls—no, not thralls, it wasn’t like that. It was only temporary. She would release them soon, they would remember nothing, and no harm would be done.

Jowan was brought upstairs, gently this time, Loriel had specified that. The Arl jerkily affixed his seal to the signed papers of manumission, then dropped his hand to his side and stared into space. Loriel picked them up and handed them to Jowan herself.

“There,” she said brusquely. “That should do in case you get caught. But do try not to get caught this time.”

And her old friend just looked at her with weary horror, failing to take what she pressed into his hands.

“I didn’t mean to give you ideas,” he said hoarsely.

“You didn’t."

“But you can’t—”

“You’ll find,” Loriel said, “that I can.”

Still he just stood there. He was always just standing there, blankly, waiting for her to decide, waiting for her to do something. And now that he finally had made a few decisions of his own, they had been such intolerably foolish ones that Loriel had had to do…all this.

“Jowan, just take the papers,” she snapped.

Still, he hesitated for a long, frustrating moment. She was about to snap again,, when he took the papers, looking more miserable than any man spared from death had any right to be.

“No one beyond this room can know what transpired here,” Loriel warned. “The guards who escorted you here must believe that you are being taken to the Templars. They will believe that, for the next thirty minutes. That should be plenty of time to leave undetected. Once you’re beyond Redcliffe, you’d do well not to return. From there on out, you’ll have to make your own way. I won’t be able to help you anymore. Do you understand?”

Jowan looked helplessly at Yvanne, but Loriel had no idea where Yvanne was looking. Only what she was saying—and that was nothing, nothing at all.

“Just go!” she hissed.

He went.

He was already beyond the door when she realized she might never see him again, that she ought have given him a kind word, an embrace –but he was gone. As she had told him to.

Loriel released her thralls.

And then, as though nothing had occurred, the war meeting resumed. Alistair’s bid for the throne was discussed. Plans were arranged, routes plotted, agreements struck. Alistair grumbled lowly, Loriel assured him. Assured everyone. Smiled graciously, said all the right things. It went late into the night, with Yvanne excusing herself halfway through. Loriel hated to think it, but she relaxed by an order of magnitude when she was gone. It was so much harder to act, with her around.

And so it went, until Loriel was finally released from duty to return to her quarters. Yvanne was there. Of course she was.

She sat on thee bed, wide-eyed. “You’re a—”

“No,” Loriel said quickly.

“But you—”

“One spell does not a b—a bl—” She found she couldn’t say it. “One spell doesn’t make me anything,” she settled. “But what you were doing wasn’t working. Getting angry and yelling…it never works, Yvanne. You have to be persuasive.”

The corner of Yvanne’s lip crept upward. “And when one is insufficiently persuasive, one uses blood magic?”

“ _Shh,”_ Loriel hissed. “Are you crazy? Someone will hear.”

Yvanne rolled her eyes. “And do what with us? Inform the remaining Templars? What, all three of them? Please, Loriel.”

“Just don’t say the damn word, Yvanne.”

“Fine. But we both know what it was.”

Loriel flinched. “It was one time. I won’t use it again. I didn’t mean to use it at all.”

Yvanne’s face had been stormy, in one of her moods that Loriel had grown to know so well, but now she broke into a grin. “Oh, I see. Did you think I was _judging_ you?”

“I know you weren’t. And that’s the trouble.”

Yvanne shrugged, blithely fingering one of her hair twists. “Saving a friend in need from a terrible fate? How terrible. How awful. I am absolutely scandalized.”

“Taking control of a person’s mind like that—it’s wrong. I can’t believe you would even—”

“Don’t lecture me,” Yvanne snapped. “You’re the one that did it.”

Loriel flinched, and Yvanne softened immediately. It was like they were children again, playing by the lakeshore, chasing each other and shrieking with laughter older girl had shoved her just a little too hard and made her cry, and then desperately comforted her in apologetic panic.

But they weren’t little girls anymore. Loriel had to remind herself.

“Look,” Yvanne said, “If you hadn’t done it, Jowan would be dead now. Would you have preferred that?”

“No,” Loriel said miserably.

“Then don’t waste time agonizing over what kinds of magic are acceptable and what kinds aren’t. You did what you had to do, and you were right to.”

“I’m not going to use it again.”

“Alright.” Yvanne shrugged. She had that look on her face, like her feelings were hurt and she wasn’t going to admit it even on pain of death. Then she said: “So you’ll teach it to me, right?”

“What? No! You _are_ crazy. Why would you even think--?”

“Come off it! Jowan taught you, so it’s only fair—”

Loriel flinched. Yvanne saw, and cut off, and waited.

“Jowan didn’t teach me,” Loriel admitted.

Yvanne snorted. “Right, you just figured it out yourself just like that? Because you’re _that_ brilliant? Well, isn’t that just typical. Brilliant, top-of-her-class Loriel Surana, casually figuring out an entire field of magic all by herself--"

“It was the demon,” she whispered.

Yvanne shut up. She looked like she had in the Arl’s chambers--like she didn't recognize the world she was living in anymore.

“It, it offered me knowledge, when I came to kill it. I almost had it—and it begged for its life. What was I supposed to do?”

“Everyone deserves a second chance, huh,” Yvanne said dryly, collecting herself. “Demons included?”

“I didn’t want to kill it,” she said, pathetically. “After the Circle—after this whole year—I was so tired, Yvanne. It offered me knowledge, in exchange for being left alone. I offered to let it leave with its life, instead. And it did. And that’s how I learned it. I didn’t want to. And I won’t use it again.”

Yvanne looked long and hard at her. Loriel forced herself to look back.

"That good-little-mage shtick might work on everyone else," Yvanne said eventually, “but you should know better than to try it on me. Why did you really do it?”

Loriel smiled ruefully, and broke eye contact. She shrugged.

“What can I say?” she said, more steadily now. “There I was, defeated demon at my feet. I’d proven something to myself, whatever it was. I’d won in the Fade. And then it started talking, making offers…and I listened. Just like they always told us not to.”

It had talked, and she had listened, and she had thought about the flecks of spit flying from Cullen’s mouth as he called them monsters, and she had thought about every suspicious glare she had ever suffered, and she had thought about Jowan, and she had thought about Irving, thought about being called one of the good ones, _the best of us,_ and she had thought about the writhing monsters formed from the flesh of all the people she had known her entire life, and again she thought of Cullen, Cullen’s twisted ugly face, Cullen’s raving eyes, Cullen’s condemnation that wasn’t really _his,_ for it had been taught to him, as it had been taught to all Templars, all mages, to Yvanne, to Loriel. Told, from the first, what they were, what they were in danger of becoming, what they had been told from the first was the reason they were locked up for—

And she had been angry. So angry.

“And I thought, why not? Why not justify their fears? Why _not?”_ She laughed near to weeping, bent over, her filthy hands marring the linen sheets of her borrowed bed. “After all, what’s left of Kinloch? Who’s to punish me?”

“Loriel…”

She straightened, fisting her fingers in the sheets. “But I was wrong,” she said. “I’m _not_ what they think I am. It was an act of petty satisfaction, nothing more. Were it not for Jowan, I’d regret it entirely.”

Yvanne didn’t respond. “Well?” Loriel demanded. “Aren’t you going to say something?”

There was no sound but the dripping of her blood onto the floor. She had made the cut inexpertly, too deep, too jagged. The blood had seeped through her sleeve, saturating it even through the thick brocade and beginning to drip. Yvanne crossed the room to gently take hold of the arm and roll the sleeve up. It was a good thing that the brigandine was already so bloody that the additional stain would not be remarked upon. A simple burst of healing magic closed the wound.

“There,” Yvanne said. “That’s better.”

Loriel shut her eyes and squeezed her hand. “I should have sent Wynne. Or Irving. Or you. You’ve always been good with the Fade. If it hadn’t been for you I would have lain ensorcelled in the Sloth demon’s demesne until my body was rotted.”

“What are you trying to convince me for?” Yvanne mumbled, drawing away. “I was the one always raring to split open my veins and deal with any demon I could. A pity you managed it first.”

Pity, Loriel thought. A pity.

“But all that aside—you _are_ going to teach it to me, right?”

Her head started shaking. “No, no, no, you’ll be named maleficar—”

“If they wanted to do that, they could easily make something up.”

“But if they’re right—”

“Then I’ll have something to defend myself with. Templars only block the Fade, they can’t touch power drawn from blood. Loriel, _come on.”_

“Yvanne, pleased, just drop it, please. Nobody should know the things I know, I wish I didn’t know them.”

“Liar,” Yvanne said, and she was right.

“I can’t. I shouldn’t.”

The corner of Yvanne’s mouth pulled upward. “Those were different sentences.” She stepped closer, so close that she had to look down to her face, so close that Loriel could feel the heat of her on her skin. “Come on. What do I have to do to convince you?”

Didn’t she know, Loriel thought with a burst of irritation, how intimidating that was, when she loomed over her like this? Yvanne wasn’t even that tall for a human girl, but everyone was tall when you were an elf.

But of course she didn’t understand. There was so much Yvanne just didn’t understand.

Loriel did not look up. “What did you dream about?” she said suddenly.

Yvanne drew up short, taking a half-step back. Loriel let out the breath she’d been holding. “What?” Yvanne said, half-strangled.

“In the Fade.” Loriel was looking at her now. “You saw my dream. And you told me about Alistair and Morrigan’s. What was yours?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Yvanne said gruffly. “It never happened, remember? Those were your words." She shook her head, as though banishing cobwebs. "Don’t change the subject.”

“Well, I’m changing my words. What did you dream about, Yvanne? Just tell me that.”

Yvanne’s eyes flicked up, then down. She licked her lips, tongue darting out so briefly, and oh, even after everything, it set Loriel aflame with want.

She hadn’t lied, that she was tired. She was so tired, from the blood, from the Fade, from the darkness and the death. Tired and cold, bled though no longer bleeding, and for one soft word, one soft touch, she would have given up anything, anything.

“No,” Yvanne said.

Loriel sagged. Yvanne knew, she had to, she wasn't stupid. And Loriel knew. They both knew, and it didn't matter. “So we’re really not going to talk about it,” she said. “The way we haven’t been talking about it for years now. Are we never going to talk about it?”

“The way you didn’t talk about dealing with a demon for blood magic?” Yvanne shot back. “After all your talk of the Circle being _necessary_? For all your talk of how we _deserved_ what happened to us, for we might deal with demons and turn to blood magic?”

“That’s not what—”

“Yes it is,” Yvanne said, and she was right. “You fucking hypocrite,” Yvanne said, and she was right about that too.

Loriel closed her eyes.

“If you didn’t owe me that,” Yvanne said, “I don’t owe you this.”

“Yvanne,” Loriel said heavily. “Please.”

She put everything she had into that _please._ All her skill with word and tone, all her wide-eyed dampness. And that sounded wrong suddenly, not true. “Please,” she said again, and this time her soul cracked into that _please,_ cracked and leaked and welled from her like a wound.

Yvanne heard that _please_ , that was without a doubt. And still, she left, and closed the door behind her.

Loriel sat down, heavy and drained. Maybe Yvanne was right, she thought. She was right about so many things, after all. Maybe they really didn’t owe each other anything. Maybe nobody owed anybody anything.


	8. Chapter 8

On the way to Denerim, after they had finished making camp for the night, Alistair gave her a rose.

Loriel didn’t understand at first. Neither did she understand his blushing or his stammering. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, the troubles of the road, but it was several long moments of staring at the plant before Loriel realized it was meant to be a token of romance. Even then she wasn’t sure she understood. She had not even vaguely imagined that anyone besides—

Alistair was still talking.

She listened as he talked, because she  was good at listening. She kept the gentle smile on her face, because she was good at that, too. But there was only thought in her mind—how could he possibly mean any of that?

A beautiful thing in the darkness. A flower. A good person. She had to resist the urge to snort. She knew she was not beautiful, and only a blind fool would see her for anything but a creature of darkness. What was he even talking about? All she’d done was be kind to him. Were they even friends? Loriel had only ever had two friends in her life, maybe now only one, or more likely, zero. He’d never have looked twice at her if he hadn’t been obliged to by circumstance.

This man didn’t even know her. How could he possibly purport to love her?

She thought of the place where she’d cut herself. It itched, though Yvanne had healed it perfectly. Would he still think her a beautiful thing in the darkness if he knew about that? Would he still believe her a creature worth loving, if he knew that she’d taken his mind by force, however briefly?

She thought of his abilities. He could disable her in moments, if he had a mind to, block her access to the Fade. Unless she drew power from somewhere besides the Fade.

He didn’t know her. Not even a little. It would be in her best interests to make sure it stayed that way.

Alistair stared at her, a shy schoolboy awaiting her response.

“That is,” she managed, “very sweet.”

On the other hand, she supposed she knew him better than most. She suddenly realized she knew things about Alistair that perhaps no other living person did. Did he imagine that to be love?

The armor, the fair hair, the earnest expression. He nearly looked like Cullen, from before it had all happened. Her smile nearly wavered.

She envisioned it, briefly. Perhaps he was fooling himself now, but infatuation could grow to love. He was her own age. Had never shown himself to be anything but a good man, a kind man. A Warden, like herself. And would it not be a symbolic gesture, for a former Circle mage and former Templar to come together in this hour of darkness upon the world?

And Alistair was not Zevran. Empty sex was not what he offered. The rose was a promise. Half an engagement, even.

(And he was to be king, that could not be forgotten. To be close to the throne could mean much, for a mage.)

But she didn’t need to imagine being with him in the dark, the way she had imagined being with Zevran, to know how she felt about it.

She had denied Zevran because she did not desire him, but with Alistair, did that even matter? It would have been wise to take the rose. She would be rebuilding the Wardens with this man, as was her duty. A closer relationship would not have been remiss. It would have made perfect sense. It would have made everything easier.

Her whole life was built of duty, of her rightful place. And was he not just such a rightful place? Was he not the painfully obvious ending to the story she had been so carefully ignoring, the story carrying her inexorably to its long-decided conclusion?

She could not help but look over to where Yvanne was, by Morrigan's fire, talking closely with her. Very close, she noted, hollow but unsurprised.

She had barely spoken to Yvanne since Redcliffe.

Maybe she never would again.

But Alistair...he relied on her. He needed her.  He would not leave, not even if he knew about the cut. He would understand. She would convince him to understand, if she had to. If nothing else, duty would bind them.

Yes. It would have been easy, in so many ways. So easy. She would hardly even have to force herself. She could see the shape of her life, the places she would go, the places she was meant to go. The things, the people, she had always been meant to outgrow, and wasn't that what growing up was about? Letting go of childish things?

No, thought Loriel. No, no, no, no, _no._ There was bird beating its wings against the cage of her heart, and it screeched _no._ It had been denying, negating, refusing, all her life, and all her life, Loriel had ignored it.

No more.

Loriel placed her hand around his, and closed his fingers around the rose, gently so as not to hurt him with its thorns.

She shook her head.

“I’m very sorry,” she said, and turned  away before she could see his hurt expression, before she could start to feel bad for him.

She thought about the cut on her wrist, gone now, and yet never gone. That cut had been the first no. This was the second. She did not know if she would ever manage a third, but for now, it didn't matter.

My life, she thought, making for the dark woods beyond camp. My life, mine. All else within it, she would give to the world, to the Wardens, to whoever came along and asked, but this, _this_ was hers.

\--

Yvanne had noticed when Alistair’s uncertainty had turned to sudden determination, noticed when he had made his way towards Loriel alone by the fire, noticed when he’d drawn her away to speak in private, and instantly become filled with enough fury to leave her hair standing on end from accidental magic. She despised. She roiled.

She needed to rant.

She treated Morrigan to a long, furious diatribe on Alistair’s numerous lacks, his buffoonery, his weakness, his woeful inadequacy, which Morrigan seemed to enjoy immensely. Yvanne, somehow, did not.

Morrigan crushed the dark red leaves in her mortar and pestle, humming thoughtfully to herself. “Both him and that little songbird,” she snorted. “Fools for love. It is embarrassing to watch.”

This caught Yvanne so off-guard that she almost forgot what she’d been so angry about. “What?”

“Are you as dim as Alistair?” Morrigan said. “Our dear Chantry sister thinks herself in love, too.”

Not her too, Yvanne despaired. Was _everyone_ falling in love with Loriel? Who would be next? Sten? Oghren? _Shale?_ “I think Alistair wins this round,” she muttered, forcing herself not to look back at the main camp. “They’ve been talking long enough.”

Morrigan snorted half in surprise and half in derision. “Our fearless leader? Oh, not her _._ You, fool. She believes herself in love with _you.”_

“I—what? That’s ridiculous.” All at once Yvanne realized that it really wasn’t. Leliana who kept touching her clothes, and commenting on how nice her hair was, and how lovely her magic was. Leliana whose ex-lover she’d help kill. Who she’d awkwardly comforted after. Who had gazed at her with wet, hopeful eyes full of something Yvanne had pointedly ignored.

Was this how it happened? So easily? Even to _her?_

“So she is finally enlightened,” Morrigan said, rolling her eyes.

It was obvious in hindsight, suddenly. Leliana…Yvanne had never so much as _considered_ ….

“Well, she’s wasting her time,” Yvanne muttered. “I am not…that sort of person.”

“And good it is for you to be so,” Morrigan said. “Love is for children and fools.”

“That’s right." It certainly was for people like her _._ Whatever ability to love she’d had before had been crippled, hobbled. Useless to try. Useless to burden anyone with it.

Perhaps some people managed it, even after everything. Anders had, for a while.

“You should have met this fellow I knew back in the Circle,” Yvanne said. “Real idiot. Got himself thrown in the dungeon for a turn of the seasons over love.”

“Indeed.” Morrigan snorted. "'I suppose that _is_ the sort of thing mages that allow themselves to be penned like cattle might do."

“Right,” Yvanne said, feeling sick. The memory of Morrigan’s voice in Kinloch echoed far.

Morrigan really was beautiful. She was pale like Loriel, and dark-haired like her, too. There was something raven-like about the both of them. But beyond that, they looked nothing alike.

And Morrigan would never love her, never ever. She would never look at her with any longing besides the very basest. Morrigan would do what she wanted with her and let her die in the very next breath, if it was convenient.

Yvanne wanted that, now, badly

“Love may be for fools,” she said on impulse, “But what of pleasure?”

“Pleasure?” Morrigan’s sharp black eyes flicked up, and she smiled. “What of it?”

Yvanne’s eyebrow quirked upward in its practiced easy fashion. She had no idea if Morrigan even liked women, much as she talked about the vileness of men. But she didn’t care. “What of it, indeed?”

“Hmm.” Morrigan’s cruel mouth curved upward. “I suppose I do have yet to thank you for Flemeth.”

“That’s right. You do.” All the way it was supposed to be, the way it had always been.

Morrigan chuckled. “So, it is this game we play? Very well. It is cold in my tent, Warden. Company would not be remiss.” She set her mortar down, meeting her eyes expectantly, black and bright and inviting, the promise of empty warmth within them.

Yvanne thought of Leliana, whose glances made such perfect sense now. With Leliana it would not be like this. It would be soft and tender. She would braid flowers into her hair and tell her she was beautiful and that her magic was beautiful, too. Leliana would _court_ her.

The thought turned her stomach. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Traitorous.

But Morrigan, what did Morrigan matter? Morrigan would have let her die in Kinloch. Morrigan might still let her die. Morrigan would sink her teeth in her and suck her dry and move right on.

It would have been so easy.

She could no longer control herself. She glanced over her shoulder. Alistair was alone, not looking happy. Loriel was nowhere in sight.

But Yvanne could feel her. Through the Fade, through the Blight, some delicate sense that was part magic, part blood and part longing. She was just over the ridge, by the stream. Yvanne knew it.

They had barely spoken in days.

Maybe they'd never speak again.

She looked back at Morrigan. Easy. So easy. Easier than Leliana. Easier than being alone. Easier than…

She felt something break within her. Or maybe noticed something which had been broken for a long time now.

She rose abruptly, shaking. “I,” she said, “I have to go.”

She went.

\--

The water was cool and dark, and looked deep enough to submerge in. It had been days since Loriel had done what she had at Redcliffe, and though the blood was long scrubbed from her skin she imagined she could still feel it there. A stagnant bath filled by elven servants was not enough. She needed running water.

She’d stripped down to leggings and tabard when she heard the rustle behind her. She froze, holding herself still and silent, in the way that came so easily to her, until the figure resolved itself.

Yvanne was divested of her armor. She wore only the same ravaged Circle robes she’d left Kinloch with nearly a year ago. Most of her jewelry was gone, too.

Loriel tried to force herself to relax, knowing now that there was no danger. She failed.

Around Yvanne, there had been no peace for a long time now.

“I dreamt of you,” Yvanne said. Her voice was bare and bright in the moonlight.

“What?” 

“In the Fade.” Yvanne stepped closer, hesitating. “You asked me, what my dream was. It was you. It was always you.”

Why are you telling me this, Loriel wanted to scream. Why is this the first thing you say to me in days? Why would you, how could you? Why now?

Loriel forced her lips to shape the words. “And what happened, in the dream?”

For a moment it seemed that Yvanne might flee back to camp. “We lived together,” she said instead. “You and me. Two children. We had a cottage in the woods, a garden. There were crow’s feet around your eyes and grey in your hair. Nobody troubled us. We were happy.”

It had been a pretty picture. Until the mention of crow’s feet and grey hair. With the Blight in their bodies, they likely would not have long to live with either of those.

There was no need to say it, though. Yvanne knew it as well as she did.

“That sounds like a good dream,” she said instead.

“It was.” Yvanne pushed her hair aside self-consciously. “The best.”

The stream rushed past. A toad croaked. A bird rustled its wings.

Loriel's tongue was thick and heavy. “Why are you telling me this?” she said.

Yvanne opened her mouth, heaving a breath, then closed it. She didn’t know.

She shook her head helplessly. She hadn’t thought this far ahead. She had thought that she needed only to come here, open and true, and say what was in her heart, tell the truth she had denied her the other day, and all would be well.

But what did ‘well’ mean anymore? When was the last time things had been well? When was the last time things had been easy?

Loriel’s mouth was a bitter line. She hadn’t been looking directly at her, but now she looked decisively away. “I dreamt of you, too,” she murmured. “For what it’s worth. But you knew that.”

Yvanne did.

That admission should have made things easy, too, but it didn’t. Because they both knew, had known for a long time, and it didn’t make anything easier. It made it harder, if anything, unspeakably hard, a knotted tangle of pain and time and a big pile of mistakes, and the horrible truth was that it was not easy and never would be.

Her throat felt tight and awful. The thousand things she wanted to say would not come.

Loriel still was not looking at her. If she would only look, that would have been sufficient. If she had looked that would have been enough. If she could only see her eyes then everything she meant would be clear as day.

But the silence stretched on.

They had been silent in each other’s company so many times before. The long moments in bed before sleep, and sometimes after it, if they could get it. Long periods of Loriel studying and Yvanne scribbling caricatures of various Templars in the margins of their books. The days and days on the road. Silence had ever been easy for them. They didn’t need to talk. They knew each other too well.

Now they couldn’t. For precisely the same reason.

Yvanne sat on a mossy boulder, dropping her head in her hands. “Did we deserve it?” she blurted. “Being locked up. Told we’re monsters and all that. Everything that happened since we were kids. Did we deserve it?”

Loriel was quiet a while. “It doesn’t matter what anyone deserves,” she said eventually. “Nobody gets what they deserve. People get what they get, and they can do with that as they will. That’s it.”

“But it does matter. On some level.” Yvanne sounded so wretchedly unsure, completely unlike herself. Since when was she ever unsure? “Doesn’t it?”

Did it?

It was easier if you deserved it, wasn’t it?

“It doesn’t,” Loriel said adamantly.

“Did I deserve it?” It might have been cruelty, a way of digging a knife deeper. But the question was bare and honest and small.

Loriel’s breath caught. She’d taken a blunt blow to the stomach a few weeks ago in a darkspawn skirmish, could hardly breathe afterwards. This felt worse than that.

“All those years you spent telling me to keep my head down,” said Yvanne. “To not get in trouble. All your talk about…about accepting your place. Was it true? Was that my place? Was that right?”

“No,” said Loriel. Her voice cracked and she hated it. “You didn’t deserve it. Any of it. Never.”

Yvanne didn’t react. Her soft dark eyes beheld her. “Alright,” she said, soft as the summer breeze, “Then say you didn’t, either. Say you didn’t deserve it.”

“Yvanne, what is the point of this?”

Terrifyingly, she had vacated her seat, was coming toward her. “Just say it, please, just say it out loud so I can hear you say it. Just do this one thing for me.”

Loriel thought of the dying animals, the sickness, the seeping diseased darkness of her magic. Nothing like Yvanne’s bright healing.

“Loriel.”

She was close now, too close. Doing that looming thing she always did. She probably didn’t mean to loom, but it didn’t matter. It still sent Loriel’s pulse thundering. But she knew it wasn’t her tallness that did it, but her proximity. And what was she to do in that case? Never be close to her again? Steadily draw away, as she had been subtly doing this entire year?

No. Surely not. That would have been too terrible a loss.

“Whose fault is it that we were born mages?” Yvanne said.

Loriel felt so tired, suddenly, the weight of a year’s hard travel bearing down on her like a boulder. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. But someone has to take responsibility."

“We were children.”

Loriel squeezed her eyes shut and put her hands on her head. Weren’t they still children? She still felt like one, despite everything. “I know.”

“Do you?”

She opened her eyes and saw that Yvanne’s eyes were bright and wet, and suddenly she realized that she hadn’t seen Yvanne cry in years. Not since they were small.

It was then that she became afraid.

“Why’d we let it happen, Lori?” Yvanne said miserably. “Why’d we let them fuck us up so bad? We could have run. Anders did. Jowan did. We could have run. Why didn’t we?”

Because I am selfish, Loriel thought. Because I was afraid. Because I wanted you safe with me.

“Then maybe I did deserve it,” Yvanne said bitterly. "Maybe I let them do it to me, because I was weak, because I wanted--"'

“No!” Before she realized it, Loriel was shouting. “No, you did not! Maker’s breath, you did not, and I did not run because I loved you and I was weak and I was afraid.” She shook her head. “You should have been married by now. You should have had that cottage and those children. You should have had everything, and none of this should ever have happened.”

Trembling. “You really loved me?”

It was a stupid question, because Yvanne knew, had known, had loved her back for as long as she could remember. Had loved her first in the sticky, vulnerable way that only children knew, had loved her continuously since, loved her now, and needed her, and wanted her.

Had not dared think so for fifteen years.

The thing which had broken in her crashed over her, drowning out everything else.

But Loriel was still talking, shouting, heedless. “I told myself that it was necessary, that all of it was deserved, that all of it was right, somehow—how else could I watch you beaten bloody, and not whither everyone there to ash and dust? If we were not monsters, then how could they possibly lock us away? If it was not acceptable, then how could I live with it? But after what we saw—all the dead flesh, the meat—how can any of it be necessary if it does not even _work?”_

Yvanne took her face between her warm hands. “We were never monsters,” she said.

“No,” Loriel said, slowly, like she was acknowledging it for the first time. “And even if we were—the cage is broken. There’s no putting us back in it.”

She looked up at her, so close, so suddenly determined, and--

No, no, Yvanne thought, not like this. She wanted to do it on purpose. She wanted to do it _right._ She wanted to do it like Leliana would have—with gifts, and compliments, and deliberation. Like a courtship. She would only have the one chance to do it right the first time. She had never done anything right in her life, but this was important.

Because Loriel was right. The cage was broken. No one could stop her. They were free, and free, Yvanne realized, was terrifying.

And while she was paralyzed, trembling with fear and desire, Loriel pulled her down and kissed her.

It was messy, and wet, and inexpert. It was the best kiss of her life.

It was Loriel’s first.

Yvanne was so much more than she had ever imagined, so much fuller, so much dearer, a woman living—no dream, no fancy, but here and warm and alive, opening herself, responsive and clinging.

There was no more room in her weary head for doubts, for duty, for the sure knowledge that their difference irreconcilable, no room for fear or sorrow. There was only, infinitely, Yvanne.

“I love you,” Yvanne murmured, holding to her as a sailor clung to her only hope of life in the storm. “I love you, I love you, I love you—” She could not seem to say it enough times now to make up for the years of silence, and Loriel could no sooner have stopped kissing her than she could have dammed the ocean.

\--

Yvanne had thought often of what it would be like to be with Loriel.

Not for too long. Not too vividly. That would have been dangerous. But more and more she had been unable to stop.

She had imagined, at first, Loriel’s bed, in silence and in darkness. It would have been so easy, to turn to her, touch her, kiss her, bring her pleasure—they slept in woolen shifts, easily hiked to the hip. She had imagined, what it might have been like to slip that shift of her shoulder, to  pin her to the narrow apprentice bed they often shared, and show her everything she knew.

Later, after the incident in the broom closet, she had returned to that closet often in fantasy, imagined what might have happened if Loriel had not declined. The things she would do, the delights she would lavish—she knew quite a few by then. She had thought she would regret forever, that she would never get to do them.

Later yet, outside the walls, where there was truly nothing to stop them, no Templars, no rules, no constraints, no reason, now, to hold back—and that had been when the fantasies had become more frequent still, nearly inescapable in the lonely darkness of the vast cold night—she had imagined the lazy way she might have divested Loriel of her Warden armor, the way she might have pressed her against a tree and kissed her firmly, the way she might have lain her down beside the fire, the things she might have done after that.

In all these imaginings, vague, suppressed as they were, Loriel had been shy, perhaps coyly blushing, in the way of inexperienced women—always willing, always wanting, but unsure, holding back. It had been reasonable to imagine so,  given how Loriel engaged with the rest of the world. Her hesitance, her shyness, her silence, her apparent inclination to men—all this Yvanne had expected, anticipated, fretted over.

Here, imagination had failed her utterly.

Loriel kissed like a woman dying, desperation scribed in every curve of her body. Her hands gripped like Yvanne might disappear at any moment, dissolve like smoke, like a dream. Though she trembled—Yvanne trembled too—she pressed forward, pinning Yvanne to the ground with not so much her weight as her intensity. Her lips were on hers, and then they were on her chin, her jaw, her ear, her neck—she gasped, clutched her tighter. Yvanne had been kissed more skillfully, less clumsily, but never so well.

Her robe tore as it came off—it was impossible to tell which of them had done it, in the flurry of hands and lips and desperate need—Loriel had lost her tabard and boots, was in the process of shedding the fabric underneath.

To think Yvanne had thought she’d known her! She had known what Loriel had looked like naked for years. Communal bathing in the Circle made elsewise impossible. She knew of the mole underneath her right breast, the one she’d had before either of them had even had breasts. She knew of her bony shoulders and knobby knees, her narrow hips and short legs, she knew of the faint burn scar on her thigh from a childhood accident that was sort of shaped like Nevarra.

She even knew how that body felt against hers, the way its contours melded to her own. She knew the patterns of her breaths, the places she liked to be touch, the places she hated. Yvanne knew Loriel better than she knew even herself.

But she had known nothing compared to what she was learning now—the way she shivered at her touch, the taste of her sweat, the sounds she made. Yvanne had learned to be quiet during sex, to bite her lip and stifle her moans, but Loriel had had no such training. Everyone at camp could probably hear them. She was loud and unexpectedly shameless.

She was everything, everything.

For a moment, Yvanne despaired. This was all happening too quickly. Too much and too fast, when she had ached to savor it—Maker, she could have done this for hours at a time, stretching out their time together until thirst or hunger or exhaustion would make them stop. She wanted to beg Loriel to stop, slow down, let her taste this miracle before it was over.

The realization struck her like lightning, as Loriel’s lips marked a blazing trail down her chest—there was no need for this first to be a last.

Who could stop them now?

The walls were gone. The cage was broken.

Afterwards they lay in the grass with the stars wheeling overhead, melded together with nothing but skin to separate them. Yvanne kissed Loriel’s temple and breathed again, “I love you.”

“As I love you,” Loriel responded, “As I have loved you since we were children. As I shall love you until the stars have burnt to emptiness and the Void rules all. As I would love you in every possible world.”

“Maker, Loriel, I can’t outdo _that.”_

Loriel kissed her again. There was no more talking for some time.

“How'm I gonna forgive myself for all the time I wasted?” Yvanne mumbled.

Loriel shook her head. “None of it was a waste. Every moment I had with you was joy, even when it was agony.”

“Lori…” Yvanne traced a knuckle down the side of her face. “Did you rehearse that?”

Loriel snorted and nestled into her. “Only for the past ten years or so.”

The moment would not last. It was cold out. Soon enough they would to dress and return to the fire. When starlight faded and dawn broke, and it would break, they would have to move on. To war, to blood, to darkness. And it would not be easy, none of it.

But there would be more moments. There would be as many as they wanted.

That would have to be enough.


	9. Chapter 9

The sight of Loriel on the night of the Battle of Denerim was not one Yvanne would soon forget.

The sky had been alive with spirit and lightning, illuminating the field of battle even through the torrential rain—rain that Yvanne herself had called down from the heavens in a flurry of magic she would never have believed herself capable of but a year ago. She was storm and savior at once, alight with a healing aura even as she dealt out crackling death.

The battle, which had seemed to go by in agonizing slow motion, left only a blur of color and emotion in her memory.

All except Loriel herself. She had become a terror in blue and silver, a small lean figure with no hint of softness now remaining. It took her no visible effort to keep the aura of death and blood around her, felling darkspawn before they could come near her. She was the eye of Yvanne’s storm, calm and uncompromising in the chaos. Her hair had whipped in the wind. Yvanne remembered that, her hair, long and black and wild. It had barely brushed her shoulders not so long ago. What had happened to her? Had Yvanne changed that much, too?

She imagined she must have. She would not have thought herself powerful until that night. Now, armored in silver and spirit, the boundless might of the Fade at her call, Yvanne could not deny that this was exactly what she had become.

But Loriel.  Loriel, the fearless commander. Loriel, the hero. Loriel, the picture of cool competence. Loriel, silhouetted against moonlight and lightning, leaping onto the beast, knowing she would succeed—as though it was something she did every day.

Yvanne’s heart had nearly stopped.

(Later, Loriel would tell her that none of it was true. That It had been a desperate impulse. That she’d been terrified. But somehow Yvanne couldn’t believe her. Her eyes had shown no fear, no fear at all.)

She remembered the burst of light. She remembered dropping every spell and running. She remembered the terror, the scream, the exultation of Loriel’s living fearless eyes on hers. She remembered the glint of wicked satisfaction in them. She remembered a blood-and-blight-stained kiss.

After that she could only recall the Fade.

She walked its dreamstained shores, unmindful of how or why she had gotten there. Little spirits nipped playfully at her heels and tangled in her hair, hovering around her like eager-to-please apprentices.  She had the vague feeling that she was looking for someone. But the shore was so peaceful even as it writhed. It was so nice here. The pull to sit and watch the waves a while was near impossible to resist.

Time passed, or perhaps it didn’t. She realized she wasn’t alone here, after all—that she hadn’t been alone all along. A golden thread sprouted from her chest, thin as gossamer, but strong as steel. It extended out beyond her, beyond the waves. She followed it with her eyes, with her magic, calling out to the distant seashore—and suddenly there was warmth at her side, a touch at her cheek.

“Yvanne,” Loriel said, realer than anything surrounding them. “Come back.”

“Back?” Yvanne said faintly. Dream. This was a dream. She was dreaming of her.

“You aren’t dreaming me,” she said. “I’m here. You’ve had a lyrium overdose. You’ll be fine.” She said this as though imposing her will on reality, rather than simply describing it. “You need to come back.”

“I…” Yvanne blinked, baffled. “I don’t know how.”

Loriel took her hands. “Then come with me.”

“Always,” Yvanne said, and suddenly the scene before her began dissolving

Yvanne found herself in darkness. In darkness, but in warmth and softness, too.

She was awake.

Loriel’s hair was splayed across the covers, her small form sprawled over the bed. It was uniquely inelegant of her. Usually she slept like a cat, curled into the smallest space she could fit.

Yvanne lifted a hand to run card through her hair. Loriel stirred, lifting her head. Her black eyes shimmered, triumphant and exhausted. “You’re awake.”

“You’re alive.”

Loriel nodded, slowly, as though she wasn’t so sure of it herself.

“Nice of you,” Yvanne croaked, “to come to my bed for once. I was starting to feel a little insecure.”

Loriel said nothing, surging forward. Neither of them said anything for a time.

After, Yvanne held her crushed to her chest, as close as she could get her, as tight as she could hold her. Alive, alive, they were alive, she was alive. No matter how much the sight of Loriel pouncing on that beast played in her mind, she was here and alive in Yvanne’s arms. This was the reality now. Not that.

It had worked. She had lived. It was over.

They drifted in and out of sleep together, unsure of the passage of time. There was little talk; they who had known each other so long and so well did not need to. There was warmth, and softness, and darkness.

But eventually the dawn did break. The world had not disappeared in the night. It was still there, and yet required attending.

The Hero of Ferelden was required to make an appearance.

They helped each other bathe and dress, stiff and aching like old women. It was an intimacy as familiar as it was strange.

Loriel looked more herself now, in the warm light of their chambers, dressed in wool and brocade and only a few ceremonial pieces of armor. She was thinner, yes, and her hair longer, but she was still Loriel. Her friend. Her love. Not the living weapon she had been that night, but only a girl. A woman.

Legendary hero or not, she looked uncertain, her eye avoiding the door to the outside world.

Yvanne didn’t have to ask what was wrong.

Loriel took a breath. “I don’t want to face Alistair.”

Yvanne smoothed her hair. They would have had to talk about it eventually. “Well, you don’t have to. It wasn’t your doing. He can hate me and Morrigan for the rest of his life if he wants.”

Loriel was silent a time. “And if your faith in Morrigan is misplaced? If come a decade from now we face an evil unimaginable, far worse than any Blight, one that we ourselves enabled?”

“Then we stab that one, too.” Yvanne framed Loriel’s face with firm hands, directing her gaze to hers. “Listen to me,” she said. “If there was any inkling in my head that your life may be in mortal danger, I would transgress against every natural law known to mortals to prevent it. I would violate every edict, every code. I would corrupt my own soul completely to save yours. Do you doubt it?”

She gave a ghost of a smile. “Did you rehearse that?”

“Maybe. Now answer the question.”

"No. I don't doubt it.”

Yvanne was not satisfied. She gripped her tighter. “And if it were me? If it were my soul?”

Suddenly Loriel’s eyes were fire. “I would see the world drowned in void and blood before I allowed harm to come to you.”

“Good. Good.” Yvanne let her go.  “Alistair is better off living and scarred than destroyed. One day he'll thank us.”

Loriel snorted. “Now that, I doubt."

Yvanne shrugged. “Perhaps not anytime soon. Perhaps not to our faces. But make no mistake," she said. "I waited all my life to be with you. I won't give you up so easily.”

"That's good to hear." Loriel kissed her fingers, one by one. “Nor I you.” She kissed her mouth, her jaw, her ear. “No matter what."

“That's right,” Yvanne said. _Void and blood,_ she thought. “No matter what.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yvanne and loriel's story will conclude in _blood and spirit_
> 
>  
> 
> [my tumblr](http://wombuttress.tumblr.com/)  
> [my oc blog](http://pile-of-dragon-filth.tumblr.com/)


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